Time Immemorial
by Beringae
Summary: Before all the turmoil, before Jason Bourne was turned upside down by memory and made into a target, he and Nicky Parsons were colleagues, constantly testing the waters around each other. This is her story. Please note the necessary ratings change.
1. Prologue

_**Disclaimer**__: No, I don't own anything having to do with Jason Bourne. I wish I did, particularly a certain someone named Matt Damon, but I don't. _

_**Author's Note: **__Well, I finally got suckered in to writing a Bourne fic. This started out being a one-shot in my brain, but so far I've got four chapters and I'm hardly half-way through. This fic will take place, initially, throughout Treadstone's first years, before Jason loses his memory. While I was watching Ultimatum, I was slightly frustrated that we knew nothing about the relationship between Jason and Nicky that was not so subtly hinted at. In fact, we know very little about Nicky's character throughout all three movies. Here's my interpretation of their history together. I realize it's not exactly an original idea, but I hope I wrote it so that it's interesting enough to slog through. It's not perfect, but I like it well enough. I'm going to try and keep it pretty tame in terms of language and sex (which is sometimes difficult for me—I like to write with lots of f-words and inappropriate situations), but I may end up changing the rating at some point. And no, I haven't read the books. I should, but I don't have time. So this story is entirely in movie-verse. Enjoy!_

-

**Prologue**

**-**

"Congratulations, Ms. Parsons. Your assignment is Paris. Welcome to Treadstone." This from Conklin, quick and dirty, over the phone. Quite suddenly, her salary quadrupled.

She boarded a plane the next day. Langley, Newark. Newark, Paris.

God, she really hated to fly.

-

She thought she knew all about Operation Treadstone. She was a smart girl, after all. Sped through undergrad work in two years, top of her graduating class at Johns Hopkins, MD-PhD with an emphasis on abnormal psychology before she turned 27.

Let it be said that not many people could claim to have called Nicolette Parsons stupid.

Treadstone, they told her, was an elite kill squad. Highly trained assassins, so resourceful and lethal that they could pretty much destroy whatever or whoever they wanted to. Luckily (_luckily_—she might have laughed about this later), these guys had been put through some of the most rigorous and experimental behavioral modification to date. Names changed, morals stripped, memories reshaped. They were conditioned to obey only the mission, to be perfect, good little assets. They were trained to be infallible, flawless, and damn near invisible.

She was assigned to Paris to, firstly, monitor the mental and physical well-being of the contiguous operatives and, secondly, to assist in coordinating logistical operations for Treadstone. She was the contact. The link back to Langley.

Simple, she thought to herself as she entered the Paris headquarters. Make sure the thirty million dollar human weapons don't snap and help them get their precious guns. Easy. Her work back at Langley as a psychology consultant had been much more difficult, she thought. Here, she was paid not for her long hours, but for her secrecy and discretion. The agents did most of the work, they told her. It's not as if they hadn't been trained for it.  
So she thought she knew what to expect. Hang around until an assignment from Langley comes in, send the assignment to the asset, and help him get whatever he might need in order to complete the job successfully.

Simple. Easy.

But _nothing_--not her impressive education, her two years working for the CIA, or her excellent composure--could have prepared her for Jason Bourne.


	2. Initiation

**Initiation**

-

She didn't like him. Not one bit did she like him. She could tell just by looking at him that she didn't like him.

Conklin was there, of course, to make the introductions. Generally she considered Conklin to be a royal prick of the first order, but she was glad all the same to have someone else there to break the tension.

The air seemed so thick that she felt as if she could have taken a slice out of it and used it to butter her morning toast.

"Nicky, meet Jason Bourne, your Paris contact," Conklin said, rather indifferently, as if he had better things to do than introduce her to her charge for however long this ludicrous operation went on. _Asshole_, Nicky wished she could say.

Despite her immediate dislike of Jason Bourne, she smiled politely and stuck out her hand. A particularly memorable part of Conklin's briefing stuck out in her mind:

_Don't piss these guys off, Nicky. Get on their good side and stay on it. It'll be best for you and for the rest of the Agency if you play nice._

The man's grip was like iron as he shook her hand, no leniency in the flesh of his palm and fingers. He was handsome, of that she could be sure, but it was in an extremely approachable sort of way. His features were non-threatening (indeed, it was only the stony expression he wore that lent him an intimidating air), not likely to draw unwanted attention during a brief examination of his appearance. Her psychology training told her that it was a good quality for a covert assassin to have—the average citizen would be more inclined to give an attractive stranger information and as opposed to an average one. Attraction alleviates suspicion.

Average height, nondescript clothes, well-built but not overly so--lean, not hulking. Perfect. Deceptively powerful. Nicky had to admire the faultlessness of it all.

And still, she did not like him. She thought it might have been the utter blankness in his eyes, dead but for the shrewd, calculating intelligence she was quite unsurprised to see. Or perhaps it was the way his face seemed set in concrete, lips unsmiling in response to her forced warmth. Or the tension that ran across his shoulders because she knew it was irking him that he couldn't quite figure her out. Or maybe it was his silence. Probably it was because she knew he could quite easily kill her in two seconds flat.

The man was a fucking _machine_. Carved out of stone, molded by training, and ready for his first assignment.

She knew then that she had not understood what Operation Treadstone truly was until now. Now that she had seen the face of the operation, the deadly precision and disconcerting hollowness of the young man (for he _was_ young) before her, she knew. She knew she was in over her head.

_What the hell are they doing to these guys? _

Conklin was speaking to her, something about contact information. She knew it would be in a file somewhere on her desk. She was set up in the apartment above headquarters--comfortable but small, he was saying. She would be in weekly contact with Bourne and the other European assets, and once every three weeks they would come into headquarters for psychiatric questioning. When an assignment arrived from Langley, she would contact the appropriate operative and handle supplies, kill sites, and anything else he might need.

Bourne stared at the wall.

"Thanks a lot, Mr. Conklin." Why was it, she wondered, that he got to call her "Nicky" and she was stuck sucking up to this jerk with "Mr. Conklin"? "We'll be in touch."

"We certainly will, Nicky. Good luck." And he was gone.

Bourne leveled his eyes on her and she almost shuddered. _Almost_. Drawing her shoulders square and internally shaking—banishing, forcing—the creeps from her spine, she stared back at him, her chin steady and high. "A pleasure to meet you, Jason." A lie, of course, and she thought he probably knew it by the way his right eyebrow rose infinitesimally, just enough to express his disbelief.

"Likewise." It was a voice that would have been pleasant had its tone not been so aggressive. The man sounded as if he were quite permanently on edge. "I'll code in a week from now."

And he swept from the room, leaving Nicky Parsons to wonder if her quadrupled salary was really worth having to work with the likes of Jason Bourne.

-

**A/N: **Sorry, another short chapter. The next one is longer, and the one after that is a beast. And yes, I know I slipped an f-bomb in there. I hope no one is offended. I figure a "T" rating is like PG-13, and they're allowed one "fuck" per movie.


	3. Evaluation

**Evaluation **

-

Notwithstanding her aversion to the man, Nicky could not help but admit that Bourne was punctual. Exactly three weeks from their previous meeting, he coded in at the allocated time. She buzzed him up.

As Nicky smoothed her hair and clothes, she considered what she knew about Bourne from the three phone calls they had shared since that uncomfortable introduction. He was slightly more talkative on the phone, even though they had had very little to speak about. Until this morning, she had had virtually no contact with Langley since Conklin's departure from Paris, leaving her with few conversational topics. All telephone contact had been brief, and she had no more information about the taciturn man than she had three weeks ago.

Mostly, her weekly phone conversations with the agents served only one purpose: to ensure that they hadn't been killed.

But today would be different. Hopefully, she would have her first glimpse into the psyche of a Treadstone operative.

She'd left the door open for him, so Bourne was free to walk right into headquarters. He did so with an air of incredible directness, looking exactly the same, his expression unchanged. Dark clothes, controlled stride, eyes alert.

She was sitting at the small table at the far end of the room, two cups of espresso steaming before her. "Have a seat, Bourne," she said, sliding one drink towards the other chair. She watched him carefully, attempting to analyze his body language, which was extremely contained.

Jason Bourne was wound as tight as a violin string.

She thought that maybe he disliked being told what to do so early in their relationship; her words had had no upward inflection that might indicate a request. But it was difficult to know. He revealed essentially nothing through his eyes or the set of his mouth, and she was forced to rely on the positioning of his shoulders and the hesitancy of his stride as he moved across the room. He was weary of her, that much she knew. She understood that he probably did not appreciate being ignorant of the true nature of her assignment in Paris. Conklin hadn't told him much.

Bourne was used to comprehending people instantly, and she knew that her carefully blank face, steady tone, and neutral body language was tripping him up. She wasn't aggressive like other CIA members he'd been in contact with, not prone to anger or frustration. Nor was she hesitant. She was different, and it was intentional on her part.

"So, Bourne, your new accommodations in Paris are treating you well, I trust?" Her only indication that this threw him was that he blinked twice, both rapidly and briefly. She could see instantly that he was unused to casual conversation. She allowed a tiny flutter of triumph in her chest.

"Yes." It was clipped.

"Good." She sipped her espresso. Waiting, allowing the silence to unnerve him. Did it? She couldn't tell.

Of course, Langley had supplied her with routine questions, a criterion she was meant to follow. If she strayed too far, they would know; naturally, the room was bugged. But she thought a little harmless unconventionality wouldn't bother Conklin.

"Do you enjoy your work?" She asked, quite abruptly, and watched him try and evaluate the question. It was intensely interesting to observe his thought process, how quickly he covered its tracks with a stony facade. She'd bet her year's income that no one from the CIA had asked him that question before.

It took him maybe half a second to formulate an answer. This guy was _good_. "I am happy to be able to serve my country and save American lives."

The same old useless brainwashed shit. "Hmm." She watched him still, noting that his eyes--bright blue, she saw--were as blank as ever. Tired of expending her energy on something that was obviously not going to yield answers any time soon, she glanced down at the papers before her on the table, and proceeded with the routine questions. Her notes were meticulous, but even as she recorded his responses she cared very little about the words that were emerging from his tight-lipped mouth.

_How often do you feel angry?_

_Do you find that organization is very important to you?_

_Do you sometimes feel like the whole world is against you?_

_Are you often frustrated with other people?_

_Do you ever feel like you are not in control of your own actions?_

_Does your anger ever become uncontrollable?_

_Do you ever find yourself acting in ways that are unfamiliar to you?_

_Do you tend to forget past events easily?_

She could tell Bourne didn't like anything about the evaluation, but he was cooperative enough. He was cautious around her, testing the proverbial water, observing her reaction to his presence. His answers to her questions would not worry the CIA. He seemed as stable as possible under the circumstances, relatively unworried by the fact that his job was to murder people.

"Okay, Bourne. Thanks for coming in," Nicky said at the conclusion of their session, smiling tightly in his direction. She handed him a plain manila folder. "This was sent from Langley this morning. Your first assignment. Geneva. Contact me if you need supplies or additional information." He took the folder, his hands steady. His eyes perused the first page, his expression the same as always.

It was nothing new for him, after all. A routine assassination. Not murder, because he was acting as a government instrument. He was not depriving anyone of family or happiness or dignity, because he did not think like that.

That morning, as Nicky had glanced over the folder in much the same way Bourne was now, she had tried to ignore the fact that the target's name was one she recognized from the evening news.

"Any questions, Bourne?" She asked briskly, finishing off the last of her coffee. His remained untouched.

He shook his head as he closed the folder, hid it inside his jacket. "No." Seemed to hesitate. "...Thanks."

She was determined not to let the surprise show on her face. None of the operatives had ever thanked her before. "Your welcome. Good luck."

He was almost out the door—she was almost alone—when he slowed, turned, and appeared to pause. After a moment of staring at her, he spoke quietly, in a voice different from what she had heard before.

"I get these headaches. Bad, right here." He touched a spot just above his brow. "They don't ever really go away."

She was very shocked to find herself breathless. His eyes were not blank anymore--he was curious, not quite desperate.

Those headaches must have hurt like a bitch.

She nodded—what else could she do?—and stared down at her empty espresso cup. "I'll try to see if there's anything we can do about that." There wouldn't be, but he didn't need to know that.

She looked up (eyes searching, waiting for more) but he was already gone.

-

**A/N: **As I have no idea how the inner workings of the CIA works and my only experience with that sort of thing is through cinema, you'll have to excuse any mistakes I might make concerning CIA protocol, habits, or equipment. There's only so much I can do.

I hope you all enjoyed this installment, the next couple chapters are much longer. Thanks to everyone who's reviewed—you've all been really flattering!


	4. Exfiltration

**Exfiltration**

-

Seven months after she had arrived in Paris, on a night that seemed as ordinary as any other, Bourne climbed through the window into headquarters. Nicky was nearly ready for bed, dressed in drawstring sweats and a tank top, sipping tea, faxing last-minute reports to Langley.

She dropped the mug of tea upon seeing him, nothing but a shadow against the windowpane, and it shattered instantly. "Bourne?" Her voice was surprisingly calm, although her chest felt tight. It annoyed her that he could startle her. "What are you doing here?"

"Quiet. Get down."

It was nearly inaudible, but the authority in those three words was unmistakable. She sank halfway to her knees, staring at him. "What's going on?" she whispered.

"You're blown. This building's been compromised. Cardena knows this is Treadstone's Paris base. He's watching you." He was already in a whirl of motion, checking the windows, switching the lights off, changing the magazine in his gun. Entirely silent, focused.

"Cardena?" she hissed, finally lying flat on her stomach. "Your target? How…?"

"He knew more than we thought he did. I just started tailing him yesterday… he's been watching the building, seeing you come in and out. I obtained some of his personal notes...papers. He knows more about Treadstone than… Look, I don't have time to explain. Where's your field box?" His voice was rushed, but controlled all the same.

Nicky felt a flutter, like a frightened bird, somewhere between her ribs and her throat. "Over there," she whispered, motioning with her chin towards a cabinet. She pressed her cheek to the cool floor, watching him, knowing well enough to keep quiet when he told her to. Bourne took the extra gun and ammunition from the box, hid them away in his jacket.

She knew from Bourne's assignment folder that this Cardena was a nasty character, and didn't much fancy meeting him any time soon. The man was a rogue agent in danger of leaking top secret information about his previous missions, not quite the same level as Treadstone but close enough that he presented a serious problem. Bourne had received the assignment two days before, and Nicky knew situation was dire if it called for an operative of his caliber.

Bourne was kneeling in the corner, fiddling with the electric cords and powerstrips that supplied the computers. When he moved, rising to stride quickly across the room, she stared at his handiwork. She knew enough about electricity to understand that the way he had connected the powerstrips--a tangle of wires and cords, too many by far to be safe when connected to all the electrical equipment in the room--would inevitably, in time, melt the rubber insulation and cause a large spark, if not a full-fledged fire.

"Bourne…" she began, meaning to warn him. The look he shot at her (hard, aggressive) shut her up instantly.

It wasn't until he pulled her up by her elbow, his hand a vice on her flesh, that she smelled the unmistakable stink of gas. She glanced at the furnace, her hair whipping her eyes, and saw a loose pipe. Understanding lit upon her brain. "You're going to blow the place up?" She forgot to whisper; his hand tightened on her arm.

"He'll think you're dead," Bourne explained as he steered her out the door and down the stairs. She expected him to take her all the way down and out the front door, but he stopped at the first floor, jamming open the old window in the stairwell. "There's a fire escape, but it stops about two and a half meters from the ground. I'll catch you."

She was evidently not aware that most of the color had drained from her face sometime within the last five minutes. He glanced at her, glanced again, and released her arm to grab her shoulder. He caught her eyes, held her gaze. "Nicky, trust me. Can you do that?"

She must have nodded, because he stuck his gun in the waistband of his trousers and vaulted over the window onto the rusted ladder that seemed to disappear into the darkness of the Parisian street. She saw his shadow hang, suspended in the black, before he dropped what must have been eight feet and rolled, springing up like it was nothing. She made her shaky way down the ladder. Finally, she hung on the second to last rung, staring down at the street that looked so very far away.

"Let go, Nicky," came Bourne's voice. She closed her eyes, and dropped.

She landed with a thump in his arms. He staggered momentarily under the impact, but did not let her go, his arms hard around her back and under her knees. Again, like it was nothing, he righted her. She stumbled away from him at the shock of having solid ground beneath her bare feet. It was then that Nicky heard a sound from behind her that she vaguely recognized, like an old memory resurfacing.

She had only witnessed one fist fight in her entire life, and it had been between her high school boyfriend and his best friend. That encounter, a jumble of unorganized limbs and awkward blows, was _nothing_ compared to what she found when she turned around, but it was from that long-forgotten scuffle that she had recognized the sound.

The noise she had heard was the collision of Cardena's fist into Bourne's face. It was a repulsive sound, like the slap of raw meat against raw meat. She turned just in time to see Bourne, with movement so fast she could hardly catch it, reach for his gun, cock it, and point it at Cardena's head. But Cardena was too smart and too well trained for that. He grabbed Bourne's wrist and slammed his hand against the side of the building; the gun skidded across the pavement.

Nicky had never seen anything like it. She was frozen, helpless, her limbs suddenly cast in cement, as the two men circled each other and landed impossible blows. She recognized Cardena's face from the file she had handed Bourne just two days ago (had it only been two days?), but in combat the man looked manic, his eyes wide and his mouth grinning with the thrill of it. Bourne, in contrast, was completely stoic, his training serving him well, mouth tightening when he went for a hit. Bourne knocked Cardena's own firearm away with ease, landed an uppercut to his jaw, slammed his knee into the other man's gut--once, twice, three times. Cardena countered with half a dozen quick jabs to Bourne's ribs. They moved so fast that it was nearly impossible to detect who was throwing which punch, but they each managed block at least half of the blows.

She watched the conflict for what felt like hours, frustrated that she seemed to be unable to move, until Cardena grabbed Bourne's left elbow, lifted it over his head, and slammed Bourne into the wall. The nauseating crunch of Bourne's shoulder sliding from its socket and his subsequent grunt of pain seemed to shock her into motion. She dropped her eyes, ignorant of what she seemed to be searching for until her gaze lighted on one of the discarded guns, lying several feet away from her. She dropped to her knees, every breath a near-silent whimper, as her hands fumbled over the firearm.

By that time, Bourne had managed to turn the tables and, one-handed, hurl Cardena against the side of the building. The other man was struggling, kicking out, as Bourne held him fast into the wall with his hand around his throat. Cardena's face was turning scarlet, the most horrific gurgling noises emerging from his mouth.

Nicky, determinedly ignoring this, shouted, "Jason!" and tossed him the gun. Bourne, lightening fast, removed his hand from the other man's throat, caught the gun, aimed, and pulled the trigger.

Cardena's brains hit the wall.

She stared. She stared at the way the man's scull had seemed to bloom red and the way his body crumpled, suddenly pathetic, to the ground. She felt uncharacteristically faint, her head feeling very far from the rest of her body.

Bourne obviously experienced no such sensation. He stared at the body briefly, as if to confirm that no further aggression was needed, and turned towards her, his eyes trained at the ground. He seemed suddenly unwilling to meet her eyes, as if he dreaded her reaction to what he had just done. He was panting hard, each breath emerging as a quiet _"ngh,"_ face white, lips tight. His arm hung at an unnatural angle, useless against his side.

He was hurting.

Nicky had forgotten about his dislocated shoulder. How had he done all that with an injury that should have crippled him?

"Are you okay?" he asked after what might have been five minutes or five seconds of silence.

Nicky began to laugh. She laughed so hard she could hardly breathe. She laughed until she had to lean against the side of the building, barely a yard away from Cardena's corpse, until her stomach ached with the strain of it.

Bourne stood sentinel, watching her silently.

She clamped her hand over her mouth, attempting to quiet her uncontrollable laughter. She could feel tears threatening at the corner of her eyes. She was not a doctor for nothing; she could recognize the signs of shock. She was beginning to shiver. She had to calm down.

Nicky took a deep breath. "I-I'm sorry. _Shit_, I'm sorry." She hated this, hated looking stupid and weak in front of him. "Did you just ask if _I'm_ okay?" She stared at him, a short giggle bursting from her mouth. "You've dislocated your shoulder, your face…" He was beginning to bleed profusely from a gash on his cheekbone, where Cardena had landed his first punch.

He had been staring at her interestedly, as if studying her behavior was more important than addressing his injuries. With a start, he moved suddenly, stooping down towards Cardena's corpse. "I have to get rid of the body. Wait here, I'll be back in five minutes."

"Jason, what are you thinking? You can't do anything with that shoulder."

He glanced down at his left arm, as if, despite the obvious pain he was experiencing, he had forgotten that it was currently useless. His cheeks lost yet more color, the shadows beneath his eyes horribly pronounced.

Having something to do, having a reason to utilize her _own_ training, was calming for Nicky. She urged him down so that he was sitting against the wall and knelt down at his left side. Touching his elbow, she caught his eyes. He had been looking at her, blood seeping slowly from the wound on his cheek. Unnerved, she cleared her throat. "Uh, you probably don't want to look," she said, softly. Obedient, he turned his head so that his clear eyes stared straight ahead.

Nicky gripped his wrist firmly. The man's arm was as heavy as lead. Attempting to ignore how much this would hurt him, she lifted his wrist up quickly. Once she positioned the arm at the correct angle, his shoulder joint slid into place with a sickening clunk, the grind of tendons and ligaments over bone. Bourne made a soft, gravelly sound, low and deep in the back of his throat, and closed his eyes for maybe two seconds, his lips tightening over his teeth.

"Sorry," she said lamely once the procedure was finished. Bourne sat there for a moment, breathing shallowly, before he stood. He flexed his arm, the fingers clenching, and moved his shoulder joint gingerly.

"Thanks," he muttered, apparently satisfied with her handiwork. "I'll be right back." Ignoring her half-hearted protestations about resting his injuries, he grabbed Cardena's body and slung it unceremoniously over his good shoulder. Before she could blink, he disappeared inside the building.

Once she was alone, Nicky allowed herself to collapse against the wall, trying very hard not to look at the spatter of blood that used to be Cardena's head just feet away from her. She took several deep, shuddering breaths, closing her eyes against the darkness that suddenly felt so suffocating.

She should have been more prepared than this. It wasn't as if she didn't know exactly what Bourne and the other operatives she was in contact with did. They killed people. Shot people in the head. Poisoned people. Stabbed them. Strangled them. They took lives, just as Bourne had done minutes ago. It was nothing new.

And still, she could not banish the last seconds of Cardena's life from her mind. She could not forget the way his body, like an abandoned puppet, had slumped and fallen sideways to the ground. She could not forget Jason Bourne's indifference as he stood over the corpse, the body of a man he had just killed.

Bourne emerged from the darkening building, a stain of red down his back where Cardena had bled on his clothes. "We need to move," he said quietly, grabbing her upper arm again and guiding her down the street. She tottered a bit on her bare feet. He did not spare her a glance, his eyes trained on the street ahead, face set in the same expression as always.

"Jason,"--she had unconsciously decided that remaining on a last-name basis with him was absurd at this point--"where are we going?"

He hesitated, enough that she noticed but not enough to worry her. "My apartment. It's safe. You can rest there." It was short, gruff.

"I need to call Langley… code in. They need to set up another building for headquarters. Do you think Cardena leaked info to any of his contacts?" Nicky asked, suddenly wondering if she would be out of a job, forced to move back to Langley.

Bourne shook his head. "I don't think so. The man was a loner. I didn't see him communicate with anyone while I was tracking him. If we're lucky, he kept this to himself."

They continued in silence, Bourne's right hand clasped around her arm, supporting her. She allowed him to bear some of her weight, grateful that he seemed to understand that her legs were weak beneath her. She wondered if it strained him as she leaned into his hold. Then again, after the display of strength and endurance she had just witnessed, she was willing to wager that he hardly noticed.

Suddenly, it occurred to her that Bourne had spoken more words to her within the last fifteen minutes than he had in the previous seven months combined, save for what was said during his obligatory psychological evaluations. He seemed to come alive when given a directive, becoming suddenly animated within the task he had been assigned. She supposed it was because his training took over, but it was slightly unnerving to say the least. He was speaking without his customary inhibition, without checking every word that he spoke to make sure it did not reveal too much about himself. His tone of voice changed, his eyes lost their hollow expression. It was as if he always, instinctively, knew what the right course of action was.

He did not even need to think. Killing and fighting and calculating were as natural as breathing.

She didn't quite know what to make of it. As they walked through the dimly lit streets, she allowed her mind to wander, somewhat subconsciously, trusting Bourne (since when had she been compliant with _that_ idea? Trusting _him_?) to guide her.

The past seven months had proved to be, if nothing else, thought-provoking. Her meetings with the other four operatives had proved her hypothesis that Bourne's demeanor was not unique to him; they had all presented themselves similarly, as focused, hollow instruments of combat. None of the other operatives had mentioned any headaches--even Bourne had not spoken of them since his first evaluation--but if she had to she would guess that they too experienced similar physical symptoms of their training. She was surprised to find that Bourne, for all his frigidity, was perhaps the least menacing out of the five. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, he was the most trusted and reliable of Treadstone's agents.

She had quickly learned that the man was unstoppable when handed an assignment—he'd had five of them since Nicky had met him, and every one had been completed perfectly, faultlessly, with no potential for error. Every action was genius, every step towards the completion of his mission carefully measured with the same speed with which he defeated opponents in hand-to-hand combat so easily.

It had become clear to her very early on in the operation that Jason Bourne did not ever, _ever_ make a mistake.

A sharp stab of pain emanating from the sole of her foot brought her back to the present. Bourne felt her stumble and slowed, shooting her a questioning glance. Nicky looked over her shoulder and spied a discarded ceramic shard on which she had apparently stepped moments before. "Jason, you don't think we could signal for a taxi, could we?"

Since when had she ever asked him for permission? It was frustrating, realizing quite abruptly that he was infinitely more capable than she was in this sort of situation. Something inexplicable within her was telling her that here, in this moment, she should listen to what he told her to do, and that she should indeed ask permission.

He glanced down at her feet, appeared to realize for the first time that they were bare, and nodded.

And as the taxi was pulling up, as he opened the door and slid in to the back seat behind her, they both heard the sudden, unmistakable sound of an explosion that told them that Jason Bourne had done his job well.

-

**A/N**: I just have to say writing this chapter—and the upcoming one—was _very _fun to write, and I like both of them an awful lot. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them!

And yes, I did steal the idea of using the gas to blow up headquarters from _Supremacy_. I figure it's the same character doing it—Bourne's thought processes stayed the same, didn't they?—so it's not _completely _heinous. I'm not creative enough to come up with something new. Blech. Oh, and I thought it would be kind of cool to have Bourne ask for the field box like Conklin did in _Identity_, when Bourne was breaking into the Paris safe house. Also, Cardena is a completely made up character, and pretty much serves no other purpose than to give Bourne someone to beat the shit out of. I hope that wasn't too apparent.

Sorry to leave you all with this cliffhanger!


	5. Cohabitation

**Cohabitation**

-

His expansive apartment--a rarity in Paris, to have a living space that large--was spartan, cold metal and white walls. She had to observe all of this from the doorway, because Bourne had stopped her with the force of his grip on her elbow. "Wait here," he muttered, taking out his gun.

She stared at it as he moved through the entryway, the severe, black metal that his hands curled so naturally around. He disappeared around a corner. Nicky had to focus very hard to hear his footsteps as he moved, nearly silent, around the apartment. She imagined him pointing the gun around corners, pressed against walls, his senses so keen that he could almost see a room before he entered it.

Had there been an intruder, he wouldn't have stood a chance.

"It's clear," came Bourne's voice, echoing off the bare walls. She found him in what appeared to be a study, rooting around in a cabinet. She was surprised to see his injuries--the gash on his cheek, beginning to clot, and the other abrasions on his knuckles and face; in imagining him moving around the flat she had pictured him whole, unhurt, carved from marble. But the man before her limped subtly, favored his left arm, looked white-faced and bloody.

"I need to use your phone," Nicky said, watching his back--the stain of Cardena's blood was still stark against the navy of his jacket--as he sorted through the objects in the cabinet. Stupid of her, really, to forget to grab her cell as she left the now-destroyed headquarters.

He nodded, finally emerging with a medical kit. "On the desk." As if sensing her desire for privacy, he strode swiftly from the room, leaving the kit on a table. Nicky heard the shower running, faintly, from a distance, moments later. She resisted the urge to snoop through the drawers in his desk as she dialed the familiar number.

The phone rang once, twice. "Conklin," came the familiar voice, sharp and annoyed.

Nicky took a deep breath. "We have a situation."

-

"How'd he take it?"

She looked up and saw Bourne in the doorway, damp from his shower, wearing nothing but dark jeans--slung low on his hips, but she tried not to think about that--and a ribbed tank. The blood had been washed from his face, but she could see bruises beginning to form around his cheekbone and jaw.

She smiled regretfully. "Not well. But I explained, and I think he understands that it's no one's fault. We had faulty intelligence about him from the beginning...Cardena knew more than we thought he did. They're working on procuring a new building for headquarters, locating Cardena's contacts and his source, if he had one. Conklin said something about sending Castel after his brother. They're sending someone here in the morning to pick me up..." She shrugged, trailing off.

He nodded, absorbing this, and crossed the room towards the medical kit. Rubbing alcohol, swabs, adhesive tape. She watched him set his gun on the table beside him and, looking into a lone mirror in the hall, dab at the cut on his face with an alcohol-soaked swab. She could see that it was not a particularly deep wound, but its edges were ragged, and were it to become infected it would leave a nasty scar. Leaning back against the desk, she resisted the conditioning that medical school had instilled so deeply within her--the urge to help, to care for, just as she had helped him with his shoulder. This he could do himself, she decided, even though her instincts told her to go to him.

Touching his face would feel far too intimate, too familiar. She was not supposed to be familiar (_intimate_) with the operatives.

He kept glancing at her sideways, as if analyzing her unaccustomed presence in his home. She resolutely ignored this, instead considering his more serious injury. Dislocated shoulders were nasty things; he'd probably be sore for about a week. Medical protocol told her that he would need a sling, that he would need to restrict movement in that shoulder for at least several days. Would he accept this? She wasn't sure, but walked past him to find materials for a makeshift sling all the same. She felt his eyes on her back as she went.

She needed a sheet, something sturdy that would hold the weight of his arm. Wandering into his bedroom--bed neatly made, painfully white, dumbbells in the corner, nothing that would indicate any other human presence besides his own--she spied his closet. Feeling unsettlingly like a misbehaving child, she opened the door, her eyes roving over the contents of his life. Everything was in perfect order, hung in neat rows, his clothes dark and anonymous. Shoes--dress, tennis, and casual--had been placed methodically at the floor. She found sheets folded on a shelf near a stack of magazines, and she selected one that looked to be the oldest.

If Bourne knew she had been in his room, he didn't seem to display any reaction. As she ripped the sheet down the middle with the aid of the scissors she found on his desk, he glanced at her, but said nothing. He had finished applying thin strips of adhesive tape to the cut on his cheek, sealing the wound. It was neatly done, she noticed, and a good alternative to stitches.

She cleared her throat. "Come here… you need a sling for that arm," her voice was louder than she expected after the long silence between them. He obeyed, quiet as ever, averting his eyes when she measured the length of the cloth against his arm. The flesh there was pale, smooth over the corded muscle beneath as she brushed it carelessly with her fingertips. She'd done this once before, during her residency at Johns Hopkins, but the skill came back to her with relative ease.

She began to speak as she worked, tying the sheet around his neck and positioning his arm bent against his abdomen. "You should get a proper sling soon--this one won't last. Just try not to use this arm much until the soreness goes away."

She knew he heard her, but he didn't respond. She doubted, suddenly, that he would keep the sling on for long. By now she had surmised that the Treadstone operatives went through some kind of training to up their pain tolerance, and Bourne seemed unfazed by the fact that she was moving his arm around, jostling his shoulder. A sling would slow him down, after all, and speed was essential for him. She just hoped he wouldn't permanently damage the joint.

She looked up from her ministrations to realize that he had been staring at her. There was an odd expression in his eyes as they caught hers, like frustration and pain and bewilderment and curiosity all in one. A muscle jumped in his jaw, flickering as quickly as a heartbeat. Nicky's hand froze over his shoulder, her breath stilled in her chest.

She'd never seen him look like that before. Soft. Unguarded.

He kept staring.

She suddenly saw the color rise on his neck--it was barely noticeable, but she saw it--and they simultaneously glanced away. Determined not to blush, she cleared her throat again and stepped back. "Um… Do you mind if I use the bathroom?" she asked, because it was something to say against the quiet.

"Go ahead," he said, turning half away from her and suddenly the wall was back up. His demeanor chilled, the hardened expression returned. She had expected it, this reversion, but it struck her as both tragic and relieving all the same.

-

Nicky considered her face in the steam-clouded mirror, her features blurred and indistinct against the white of the bathroom. Her hair hung wet around her face, over her cheekbones and jaw. She fingered the ends, thought for not the first time that she should dye it darker. Brown hair, less conspicuous.

Everything about his apartment was alien to her. While obsessively organized and neat on the job, Nicky was inexplicably sloppy when it came to her own home. She supposed it was her method of release, that carelessness. Her bathroom was cluttered, clean but strewn with soap and towels, hair products and boxes of tampons. Bourne's was immaculate, everything in its place. She opened the mirror cabinet and saw shaving cream, aftershave, a razor, deodorant, pain relievers, contact cases. It was odd that this man who she thought of as so distant, so removed from everything she was accustomed to, should use these mundane things. Curious and deviant, she unscrewed the cap to his aftershave and found that it had no odor. She should have known; he was not the sort of man to be concerned with such things as artificial scents.

Nicky wiped at the mirror with a towel, revealing her face in sharp relief. She was pink from the shower, which she had turned so hot that it nearly burned her. It had done her good, that heat, and she felt much calmer--the image of Cardena's broken skull had left her, for now.

She briefly considered using Bourne's toothbrush, but quickly vetoed that idea and used her finger along with a dollop of his toothpaste. She slipped on her underwear and sweats, but hesitated at the tank top. She had not been wearing a bra when Bourne appeared through the window, and the fitted tank did very little to conceal her modesty. She felt suddenly nervous about re-emerging from the bathroom, wet and more or less exposed. Sighing, she slipped the top over her head.

When she came upon Bourne, he was reading the front page of _Le Monde _at his deskchin resting in on the heel of his hand, elbow propped on the desktop next to his gun. This image--so casual, not quite relaxed but far more so than she had ever seen him--startled her. She crossed her arms over her chest, rubbing at her sides.

"Jason," she began. He glanced up, turned a page of the newspaper. "Do you have a sweater or something I can borrow? It's kind of chilly."

"Sure," he responded, not really looking at her. "There's a closet by the front door… go ahead." It sounded weary. He set down the paper, rubbing at his eyes, massaging the bridge of his nose. His brow was furrowed, mouth tightened into a thin, pale line.

"Headache?" She asked, still standing at the doorway. She could empathize, at the moment; her own head was beginning to throb, although she was willing to bet that his symptoms were about ten times worse.

He looked at her abruptly, eyes narrowed. She saw suspicion there for a moment, saw his eyes darken, before his features changed again as he appeared to remember that he had told her about his headaches once, many months ago. Nicky might have been amused at his paranoia were she not so thrown by the vehemence in his expression when he suspected her of knowing too much. Finally, he nodded and resumed rubbing his brow.

Nicky hesitated, opened her mouth, closed it again. Eventually she spoke. "What you have…it's probably due to stress. I think the other Treadstone operatives have headaches too. It's a byproduct of your lifestyle and of the training you went through." He looked at her blankly. _Did he not remember his training? _She did not know why that question circled around in her brain, but something about his expression made her wonder. "I used to get bad stress headaches when I was in med school"--and more recently, too, but she didn't mention that--"and I know they're no fun. A neck massage usually helps. Right where the base of your skull meets your neck and up around your ears. Especially here." Before she could think, she began to move towards him, as if to demonstrate the correct placement on his own body, her hand outstretched. After two steps she thought better of it and stopped, cursing herself inwardly for her idiocy. She instead turned around, lifting her drying hair and placing two fingers on the back of her neck at the start of her hairline, where her spinal cord met her head, just below the external occipital protuberance. "It really does help," she concluded, rather lamely.

He nodded, his right hand moving unconsciously to the back of his own neck, where she had showed him. She averted her eyes from his bicep, rounded and defined as he lifted his arm. "Thank you," he said slowly, appearing rather incredulous in response to this advice (when was the last time someone had offered him help, she wondered?), his lips slightly open as he considered her. She saw his tongue move, press lightly against the back of his teeth in thought. She decided to stop staring at his mouth, and then to leave the room altogether.

"No problem," she answered, her voice hindered by a sudden blockage in her throat, as she turned and walked from the room. She nearly forgot to go find a sweater.

As Nicky sifted through the clothing in the closet, she scolded herself roundly. It was inordinately stupid of her to be harboring an attraction to an agent. It had been made very clear to her early on that romantic attachment--or any kind of attachment, for that matter--was expressly forbidden by agency protocol.

But she _was_ finding herself (stupidly, childishly, annoyingly) attracted to Bourne. She was not so naive as to misunderstand or misattribute her own reactions to his presence. She had begun to notice it during his last evaluation, nearly two weeks ago, when she had realized quite suddenly how handsome he looked with the light casting sideways shadows across his face. Before, she had been able to distantly recognize his attractiveness--like on the first time she met him, when she had scientifically considered its usefulness--but recently it had started to affect her in a different way, in a way that caused her breath to feel caught in her throat and her abdomen muscles to tighten. She supposed it have been because he, along with the other operatives, provided the only human contact she had experienced in all of seven months. Still, no excuse, she told herself.

_Stupid, Nicky. Stupid. _

And being here, in his apartment, where he slept, was decidedly _not _helping.

Pushing these thoughts resolutely from her mind, she selected a worn ribbed turtleneck, black like most of the other things in his wardrobe. She slipped it on, chuckling a bit when she looked down and saw herself dwarfed in his clothes, the sleeves hanging past her hands, the shoulders far to broad for her. She tried not to notice that it smelled of him, of skin and soap and sweat, and she _tried _not to notice (she really did) how pleasant that scent was.

-

Nicky was nearly asleep, curled up on one end of the couch in the sitting room, when she saw him pass by the doorway through her lashes. He glanced into the room, a last minute check for intruders before he too went to bed, and then glanced again, a lightening quick double take as he noticed her form--relaxed, her lips curved slightly as she, as if outside herself, watched him. She dared not open her eyes, and viewed him through the slit of her eyelids.

He looked at her for what may have been seconds, minutes, considering her presence (had he forgotten she was here?). She recognized the same expression from when she had been fixing his sling--that overwhelming transformation of his face--for only a moment.

But then he erected an unresponsive facade once more and strode from her sight.

-

She woke to an empty apartment save for a note taped to the bathroom mirror, the handwriting almost childlike:

_Gone for a run._

It was 6:17 in the morning.

Nicky almost grinned. So like him, that was.

She'd slept fitfully, incoherent dreams rendering her restless, fidgeting on the couch. She didn't generally wake up this early, but she thought maybe she had sensed in her sleep the emptiness of the place, the absence of footsteps and motion that finally drew her from her dreams.

She padded into the kitchen after washing her face and found that he had left a gun on the counter, dark against the white of the room. She knew it was for her benefit, should she need to protect herself from intruders. Bourne was not the sort of man to leave a weapon out by mistake.

She knew how to use a gun (of course she did, she was CIA), but she didn't like it. The metal felt too impersonal, too easy. If she had to defend herself, she would much prefer to use her body, to slap and punch and kick, even if it meant a greater chance of failure. She thought, inexplicably, for no reason whatsoever besides her observations of him in combat, that Bourne probably felt the same way, that he favored the simplicity and justice of hand-to-hand combat. Because of the way he had avoided her eyes after killing Cardena, she imagined that he had only used the gun as a last resort.

Nicky didn't touch the gun. She saw half a pot of steaming coffee, spent two minutes looking for a mug until she spied one in the most obvious of places (by the doorway, on an open shelf), and called herself an idiot in her head. She sat at the table, sipping the drink that did wonders for her unease, and skimmed the front page of the paper.

Bourne did not appear for nearly half an hour, just when she was beginning to get nervous, jumpy in the silence of an unfamiliar place. She heard the door open, felt panic, and lunged halfway for the gun. He probably sensed it--perhaps he heard her, for she did not possess his capacity for silence--and his voice rang out. "It's me."

She sank back into the chair, put her elbow in something tepid and wet, and realized that she had overturned her coffee cup. Her face pinked, only a little but of course he would notice, as he walked into the kitchen. He did nothing more than raise his eyebrows at the spill before he opened the fridge and retrieved a bottle of water. She went for the paper towels and mopped up the mess.

His t-shirt was damp and clinging to him, his skin a sheen of perspiration, face flushed. She noticed that he was not wearing the sling, and resisted the temptation to call him on it. She absently watched his throat move as he took a long, drawn-out drink until half the water in the bottle was gone. She was pleased to note that last night's uncontrollable response to him was subdued for the moment. Perhaps the adrenaline and shock had had something to do with it? Or maybe it was only that now she was too tired after a bad night's sleep to consider lively things like sexual attraction.

He was nearly into the hallway--heading towards the shower, she supposed--when she found her voice. "Thanks, by the way," she said, enunciating clearly and forcefully as if to make up for her instability the night before.

He turned around, his right eyebrow raised in confusion. "For what?"

She gawked at him, let out a burst of laughter when she realized he was serious. "For saving my life, genius. For protecting me from him. For bringing me here." She was intentionally flippant, smiling half-way at him as she viewed his bemusement lift but his discomfort remain.

He opened his mouth as if to speak, obviously unnerved by her near-mocking tone, and closed it again. Then, his expression odd (like he was reaching far into himself, past the armor that made him Treadstone), she watched him relax, his shoulders loosening. She thought she saw the corners of his mouth raise just slightly--she might have mistaken it for something else, a grimace, an irritation--as he turned and continued on his way.

She stared at his back, completely, utterly, agonizingly shocked.

Soon after, as she heard the water begin to run in the bathroom, she saw a black Mercedes pull up to the curb through the window. She took off his sweater, hung it in its place in the closet, and shut the door as silently as possible behind her.

Naturally, because of what he was, he would have heard her leave anyway.

-

**A/N: **I love love love this chapter. Especially Bourne in it; I tried to subtly portray his discomfort with Nicky in his home. It was so much fun! Anyway, let me know what you guys think about the changing dynamic between these two characters.

I unfortunately have to declare a brief hiatus; I'm leaving for my freshman year of college tomorrow and might not have a lot of time as I'm moving into my dorm and such. I plan on working on this on the plane, so I might have another chapter finished by the time I get there, but I don't know when I'll have a chance to post it until I'm all connected to the net on campus. It'll probably be five or so days, unfortunately. Sorry about this, but I do have a life that is changing quite dramatically at present that I need to focus on. Enjoy this long, angst-ridden chapter, everyone!


	6. Confrontation

**Confrontation**

**-**

After a year living in Paris, Nicky began to write to the people she had known before, letters that she imagined she could send.

_Mom, I miss you. Yesterday I sat on the steps of the Sacre Coeur and looked out over all of Paris, just as the sun was setting. I wished you were there. I thought, as the city's cold beauty faded into dusk, that Paris is the loneliest place I've ever been._

She had addressed this letter to her childhood home and soaked it in the sink until it was nothing but pulp.

Her father had been dead for ten years--testicular cancer, very tragic--but she wrote to him anyway.

_Daddy, you wouldn't like what I've grown up to be. You, always the radical, would hate that I'm working for the government you railed against. Sometimes I wonder how I got here._

That one had ended up torn into bits, flushed down the toilet.

To her old boyfriend in med school, a man-boy who'd loved her fiercely even though she'd never really been very kind to him:

_Would you even recognize me, now? I could have married you. You could have been an ER doctor; I could have been a stay at home mother with three children. I would never have been satisfied, but it would have been different, much different, than my life now. _

Shredded, sliced into ribbons as she gulped down half a bottle of wine and stared at the wall in her flat. Silence, save for the hum of the machine.

She confessed most of her secrets, her deepest fears and longings, to her once best friend. They'd met in their freshman year of high school and had been inseparable ever since, through college and after. Until she disappeared, of course.

_Laurie, I think I might need you most of all. I feel like I'm in some black pit, clawing at the sides even though escape is hardly possible. I feel like I'd give anything for the sound of another human voice at ground level, you know? I've never felt so alone in my entire life. There's never anyone else. We aren't allowed relationships, no friends, not even close acquaintances. There's always that risk that someone will get to close, someone will know something they shouldn't and that someone else will find them and tear that information out of them as violently as rape. I am a ghost, my trail seems to disappear behind me. I speak to no one besides the man at the grocery store._

_Well, except for the operatives, and they're not very good company, anyway. Sure they're all smart, educated, sharp people, but they're also empty vessels, hollow and unfeeling. They don't scare me, per se, but I always feel a little jumpy around them. And why shouldn't I? They kill people for a living. I never thought I would be associating with people like that. They don't even _feel_ human. You know that warmth you get from people, even if they barely like you, after knowing them for a year? Yeah, well, these guys don't give any of it away. They are all as cold as the day I met them. Robots, perfectly trained but lacking humanity. I'm starting to hate them._

_That last paragraph was mostly a lie. I'm sorry, Laurie, for lying to you. God knows the agency has done enough of that (How did I die, by the way?). It was a lie because there is a man, one of the operatives. He's not so cold. The others are threatening because I get the impression that they enjoy their work. For him, it's more that he does it because it's programmed into him, not because he feels one way or the other. He's the best of them, in more ways than one. _

_Sometimes I feel like my evaluations with him are the only thing that keeps me from falling deeper into that pit, because it's almost like talking to real, human person. He's gotten better at talking in the past year. Granted, he still says less than the vast majority of people I've ever met, but he still makes for an interesting conversationalist. He's started to relax around me, and that allows me to relax around him. Sometimes we even talk about things besides Treadstone._

_I will never know his real name._

_I'm having dreams about him._

This letter, longer by far than any of the rest, she stared at for a long time after she had written the last word. She was frightened by her thoughts, how they looked on paper. Everything seemed exaggerated once it was expelled from her mind, spit out through her uncharacteristically sloppy handwriting.

This letter she burned.

-

Conklin had done his part after the destruction of the previous headquarters. He'd set her up in similar accommodations, more centrally located but otherwise identical. Same equipment, same files, same apartment above. Nicky found she hardly remembered that her old home had been quite publicly blown up. She lived in a daze, interspersed with evaluations and assassins and typing, recording, notating. Even sleeping, sometimes.

She felt peace, sometimes, when the sunlight cast beams of gold through her window and into her eyes, drawing her from her dreams. She would sit up in bed and stare out the window at the tiny stretch of the Seine, all that she could see between the quaint Parisian buildings. Once in a while she enjoyed a cappuccino at her favorite café and read whatever book she felt like. _Madame Bovary_, first, in the spirit of France, and then books she remembered from school, a long time ago: _The Great Gatsby, The Grapes of Wrath, Heart of Darkness, Jane Eyre, Brave New World, Pride and Prejudice. _She was reminded of the simplicity of reading a good book.

But most of the time, as she stared into the computer screen or at the blank face of an operative, it occurred to her that she was entirely alone.

-

One day Nicky dropped a tube of lipstick and it rolled underneath the bed. Sighing, she dropped to her knees and groped in the clutter, freezing when she encountered the once familiar edge of her violin case.

Nicky remembered very distinctly the first time she had ever held a violin. She had been ten, and her fifth grade music teacher had placed this odd wooden thing in her hands, showed her how to hold it under her chin and how to draw the bow—unsteadily, cringingly—across the strings. It had seemed incredibly long as she crossed her eyes, trying to focus on the fingerboard of the instrument. It was twice too long for her, heavy and awkward, but she fell in love.

Her mother, ecstatic, had never needed to remind her to practice. Nicky was a fanatic, soaking up information and skills as if preparing for a lifetime of expertise. She had played all through high school, college, and graduate school, through Mozart, Dvorak, Bach, and Beethoven (oh, _Beethoven_…). She had loved her violin—a $12,000 investment that Nicky had _begged _her mother to contribute to, because she had not been able to afford it even though it was the most beautiful thing she'd ever _seen_—more than any man she had ever slept with, more than her childhood home, more than chocolate.

She had not touched her violin in over a year.

Nicky's hands began to shake as she unzipped the case. Tears wobbled at the sides of her vision. She smoothed her finger over the strings, the gleaming maple (so tragically _cold_), the looping f-holes. She nearly keened when she plucked across all four strings and heard the jarring inadequacy of an instrument neglected and out-of-tune.

This was a remnant of her old life. Of who she had been before. Of who she would like to have been were it not for all this.

She glanced furtively at the clock, like she was doing something wrong. She had two hours until Bourne arrived for his evaluation. With a tingling in her fingertips like they were remembering sensations that she thought were forgotten (the press of calluses against metal, the cut of seventh position), she tuned the instrument and began to play.

And the music that soared from the strings was Ave Maria, a melody so beautiful and sad that she could have drowned in it, could have ended it forever.

She played for half an hour before she realized that tears, bitter and cooling against her cheeks, were falling steadily from her eyes. She realized, now, that she had missed _this_ most of all. This light and heart and beauty and music that _passion_ brought into her existence.

_She had not known passion for such__a very long time. _

Nicky played through her entire repertoire, mastering some pieces with ease and perfection, failing so completely with other, long-forgotten sheet music that she almost gave up. She played until the fingertips on her left hand were raw, red and tender. She played until her back ached and her shoulder throbbed and her heels spiked with pain.

She played until, through the haze of music, she heard the floorboards creak behind her.

All sound stopped with a discordant scratch. Nicky whirled around, her hair flying into her eyes, sticking to her tears, but through the cloud of blond she saw him.

Breath stopped. He had been watching her, _listening _to her, but upon seeing her face—a glaze of tears, an orb of sadness and regret—he blinked (once, twice), drew a breath, dropped his intruding eyes to the floor.

"I'll come back later." His voice was an unpleasant grate against the echoing strains of the violin that she still held like a shield before her. He made to turn, his shoulders as tense as she'd ever seen them.

Before she could warn herself (be _quiet_), she spoke, shakily. "H-How did you get up here?" In _her _apartment. In _her _space. In _her _life.

He faced her again, his lips pressed tight together. He didn't even need to answer her question—it had been a stupid one anyway. He could go anywhere if he really wanted. "It's three o'clock." He offered the normal time of his evaluation as an inadequate explanation. "I was waiting below and I… I heard…" He trailed off, his eyes flicking to the violin poised in her grip and then to the open window that she knew had been her downfall, from which she knew the sound of her soul had leaked. "I didn't know… I'm sorry. Sorry." He was flustered now, and had Nicky been in her right mind she would have found it endearing. Her tears had stopped, nearly, but they remained like traitorous diamonds on her cheeks. He seemed unable to take his eyes from them, his entire body on edge. Nervous, jumpy, unnerved for the first time. "I'll,"—his voice cracked, ground like wood against his throat—"Uh, I'll just go."

"_Don't_," she began, frantically and irrationally angry all at once. He froze, halfway out the door and down the stairs. "Don't _ever _come up here again, Bourne."

His shoulders hunched, the corded muscles in his neck tensed, his step slowed, but he continued down the stairs and out, out, _out_.

-

He returned an hour later and she had been sitting at her desk for nearly all of that time, staring blankly at the steady clock on her computer screen. She buzzed him up, finally daring to move from her seat, to rise and make the long trek to the other side of the room.

She spared a glance at herself in the mirror and saw her face pale, set in limestone. No tears, now. Her violin had been pushed harshly under her bed—where it belonged now, she told herself—nearly an hour before.

She was back behind her desk when he came through the door she had unlocked for him, safe. She thought he might come bearing another apology, awkward and carefully prepared, but he said nothing as he sat across from her. She was relieved. He looked the same as always and so did she.

"Good afternoon, Jason," she said, her voice friendly. She usually said this. It was good, normal.

He nodded in acknowledgement. He usually did this.

"Everything okay? Headaches the same?"

"Yes." They always were.

Nicky picked up her pen and glanced at the clock on her computer again. She could not look at him. He had seen a part of her that she hated, a weakness that she had only vaguely suspected festered within her. It was like she had cracked herself open and accidentally allowed him to see the very core of her.

Maybe he would forget all of it, someday.

She felt him watching her and doubted it.

She inhaled, steeled herself, and raised her eyes. His expression was unfathomable, unknowable. She despised his eyes, then, as they searched her face with such indiscretion.

To keep herself from yelling at him (How _dare _he look at her like that? How _dare _he see her at her worst? How _dare _he be here, in her life, at this moment, making her think like a crazy person?), she dropped her gaze to the clean sheet of paper before her. "Let's get started, okay?" She could have screamed at the quietness of her voice. "Can you report any change in your mental or physical health since our last meeting? Any excess fatigue, soreness, or other symptoms?"

"No." It was so short she only really heard the sound, not the word. She jerked her head up, gaped at him. He was always stoic, monotone, and completely solid during his evaluations. Now, his lips were pressed tight, the set of his jaw betraying his irritation. She frowned slightly, studying him, tapping her pen against the desktop. He stared her down, and she nearly cringed at the intensity of it.

Despite the robust thump of her heart against her ribcage, she continued. "Um…"—looking at her notes, collecting her thoughts under his annoyed scrutiny—"Do you find yourself having recurring or particularly disturbing dreams?"

His fist landed hard on the desk, causing her pen to fall from her fingers and her computer screen to wobble. The muscles tense, shaking with rage.

"I'm sick of these fucking questions."

It was so aggressively said that she scooted back in her chair, sat up straight, gawked at him, her mouth almost open. A whirl of kinetic motion, he stood up like he could not sit still any longer, his customarily controlled movements filled with jerky aggravation. He paced across the room and she watched him, listened, every muscle on edge.

"What right do they have to ask me these things? Am I just some damn lab rat with no right to privacy? A year we've been in this room, going through these useless questions, all this shit, but none of it ever does any good. It's always the same. Nothing they do _ever _does any good, does it? I still have the exhaustion, the stress, the _fucking _headaches that make my skull feel like it's on fire. They're driving me insane—a constant pain in my head, Nicky! Every agent in this program feels the same way, has the same symptoms."

She watched him silently, noting with distant fascination that all of the grace and efficiency his training had instilled within him had been transformed into an electric energy that seemed to pour off him in waves in his anger. He wasn't looking at her, just staring at the floor as he ranted. The words gushed from him, a catharsis after a year of silence. His voice, normally so steady, wavered and increased in pitch as he spoke. "I do things and I don't understand why I do them! None of it makes any sense. Can you imagine what that's like, to not understand how you learned the things you know?" He gestured wildly as he spoke, his eyes finally catching hers like he was pleading with her, like he thought she knew what to say.

Nicky felt a sharp pain, distinctive, underneath her left breast. She realized vaguely that it was sympathy, but her alarm in response to this person she had never seen before took over before it could really register. "Jason," she said soothingly, watching him move with wide eyes. "Calm down. All this doesn't help."

"No! _No_. I won't calm the fuck down! I've been told to be calm for the past year, but it still doesn't help the jackhammer in my head."

She'd never seen him like this, and it frightened her. He was so carefully composed, so tightly put together, and to see him unraveled and hurting and raw was so different that she felt the entire world could have turned upside down along with him. As he glared at her, something fiery besides blankness in his eyes, she was suddenly thankful for the gun she kept hidden in her desk drawer, even if he probably knew about it.

She knew that all the operatives had issues with excess aggression. Their training had wound them up so tight and molded their brains so tremulously—like a picket fence holding back an avalanche—that every once in a while, for no clear reason, they released that tension so fast and so violently that people noticed. Jarda, an agent stationed in Munich, had once told her—his accent cultured, unconcerned—that he slaughtered his cat out of rage. Castel, who she intensely disliked, had hit a woman he'd brought back to his apartment for the night.

Bourne was still moving, still struggling against his anger, fists clenched, shoulders bunched.

"Jason." She said his name again firmly, like it would help ground both of them. "If you have questions about your training or Treadstone, you should ask Conklin. I'm not permitted to release classified information—"

"Why are you defending them? Nothing you've done in the past year for them has made you happy. You're miserable. I saw it." His voice softened slightly, lost its hostile frustration, and he stopped pacing. Still looking at her.

And there it was. She had a feeling that the earlier events of the day would come up, even before he had become angry enough to startle her. She drew her shoulders together, looked past his eyes and over his head, lifted her chin. She felt fury like a black haze. _He shouldn't—can't—talk about that. _ "I hardly think that has anything to do with your complaints."

He came towards her in a flash, bracing his hands on the desk and leaning far into her personal space. "You have _everything _to do with my complaints. You're the only person I ever see who I don't have to kill."

She stared at him and he stared right back, hard, his gaze flicking back and forth between her eyes as if he was searching for something vital. She watched the pain and frustration in his face, oddly relishing the image of any sort of emotion there at all, amazed and worried at this sudden revolution.

And then his expression changed. Everything in his face seemed to tighten minutely, only for a second, and she saw his jaw clench through the skin of his cheeks. Eyes darkened, became hooded and veiled. The muscles in his arms went lax. He let out a breath, and Nicky felt the hot whoosh of it over her face and neck. She watched his pupils enlarge, watched his eyes flicker downwards to what could have been her lips so fast she might have imagined it.

Nicky felt a powerful answering pull in her belly and below, primitive and uncontrollable. She felt herself leaning forward, seeking. The look of him was unmistakable—_need, want—_and her body responded accordingly. Warmth flooded through her.

And he knew it. His eyes darkened further and grew hot.

"Maybe…" Her voice sounded low and shuddering, and she had to stop for a moment, regain her bearings.

_Wrong. Bad. Stupid. _

_Think of what those hands have done._

She remembered his last words to her, even as she dropped her gaze and looked at his hands gripping the table and imagined not what they had done but what they _could _do.

_You're the only person I ever see who I don't have to kill._

She shivered again, and only half from desire.

"Maybe you should come back another day, Jason," she finally succeeded in saying, her voice clearer. "When you're thinking clearly."

It was firm, resolute, and she saw him accept it. He blinked and the heat was pushed back from his eyes into some other part of him. He stood up straight, pushed back from the desk, his carefully blank expression in its place. "That's probably a good idea." He revealed nothing in his tone, no indication of what had just occurred (what _had _just occurred?).

He was almost out the door, she had almost collapsed against the back of her chair, when he stopped. "I apologize for losing my temper."

It was cold. Colder than she had expected, clipped and tightly controlled. She thought back to that day, more than a year ago, when she had first met him and he had sounded the same. She hadn't liked it then, either.

"It's all right," said Nicky, a rush of syllables from her lips because she was completely overwhelmed by him.

He watched her for a moment, calculating as always, before turning his back and leaving her sight.

-

That night Nicky sat at her computer, typing up her notes from the last evaluations with the operatives. She paused when she reached the part she dreaded, watched the cursor blink after the word "subject."

She knew what she should write.

_Subject displays irrational aggression and resentment towards the operation, its training methods, and its protocol. This evaluator recommends that the subject be removed forthwith from the program._

The cursor blinked.

The cursor blinked.

The cursor blinked.

Finally, typing slowly, anxiety a burn in her stomach, she continued.

_Subject displays no discernible change._

-

**A/N: **Hello, everybody, after my short break! I hope this chapter suits you. I find the first part of it to be very, very sad, and the second part to be very, very hot.

Just wanted to let you all know that chapters will be coming more slowly now, just because I'm in school and working hard. So don't worry if I don't update in 4, 5, 6, or even 7 days. It doesn't mean I've abandoned the story, only that I have other things like reading and writing and other college-y things to do that trump fanfic.

One other thing:

(AND IF YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT BOURNE AND NICKY'S RELATIONSHIP IN THE FUTURE, DON'T READ THE FOLLOWING. HOWEVER, I DO NEED _SOME_ PEOPLE TO READ IT, IF THAT MAKES SENSE)

By this time (especially after that last chapter), I hope it has become clear that Jason and Nicky are going to "do it," as it were. Sorry if I spoiled it for anyone, but fact is fact. The reason I say this is because we have two (maybe three) options. I could keep the fic at a "T" rating, which means that we will know when and where they have sex but not any details. Another option is for me to change the rating to "M," which would give me more freedom to include details about the actual sex and the subsequent hotness. In the words of Padfoots-Pirate, who seems to be a proponent of the second option, it would be "quite porny."

The third and less likely option (in other words, I don't really want to do it) is for me to post a mild version online but people could e-mail me if they feel like they _have _to have the more intense version. I can only really see this scenario if I see some people insist that they really don't want to read the hardcore stuff online and I see other people who _really _want the "porny" version.

I just wanted to give you guys the choice because I don't know the ages of my readers or the relative tolerance for graphic stuff. I didn't want to write a graphic version and post it and have some people not be able to read it. Thanks for reading, and let me know about this!


	7. Degeneration

Degeneration

()()()

Nicky was eating a _croque-monsieur—_the brown paper in which it was wrapped greasy, the gruyère both gooey and crunchy—on a bench by Les Halles when she thought she saw him, a blur in the corner of her eye that walked in a familiar way, the set of the shoulders horribly recognizable.

She jerked her head around so fast that she gave herself a neckache.

Bourne moved quickly, appearing relaxed to the casual observer. But Nicky knew him better than that, and she could see by the way he held his shoulders and the slight stiffness in his arms as he walked that he was braced for conflict, for discovery, for the chase. His eyes were trained on something ahead, something moving—panicked, hopeless in the face of this CIA monster—through the crowd. Nicky watched his hand snake into his jacket and rest over what she knew was a weapon. She twisted in her seat to view his target: a man named Chireau, whose file Nicky had given Bourne three days before.

Quite suddenly Nicky realized she couldn't breathe. It really was a phenomenally idiotic way to be discovered, trying to inhale your sandwich.

Nicky couldn't help but cough until her airway was clear, until her face was red and her eyes teared. She finally looked up through watery eyes and saw him looking at her.

_He'd stopped moving._

He stared at her for a moment from across the square, his figure a solitary dark point of immobility amidst the crowd. She felt caught within his gaze.

Then, remembering himself, he turned, ready for a struggle, preparing for battle if it came for him.

But Chireau was gone. He'd lost the target.

Jason Bourne never lost the target.

He uttered something under his breath that must have been a curse, and Nicky watched him stride away towards the direction he'd last seen Chireau.

()()()

Bourne was in a foul mood—his mouth set tight, a tic barely visible at his jaw—and this surprised her. She was so accustomed to his incessant neutrality that when his mood shifted, as it had so violently during their last, fateful meeting, it threw her off, sending her reeling in a way she couldn't afford to be around any of her patients, let alone one so precariously dangling in her life as Bourne.

"Good morning, Jason." She forced a pleasant tone, even though she had been feeling anything but since their confrontation last month. The hazy days in Paris had only become more blurred with time, her homesickness (was this the right word? She didn't really have a home anywhere anymore, thanks to the CIA) more pronounced, although she had given up writing to imaginary people.

"There's not much good about this morning, Nicky." Bourne said this lowly, watching her through obviously guarded eyes as he lingered by the door, his posture rigid, arms held tensly by his side. She raised her left eyebrow infintescimately, trying very hard not to relate his reply to that of a grouchy adolescent.

"Right. Any news on the target? How's the investigation going?" She asked, knowing full well what his response would be.

"Not well." His eyes searched her face. "As you've probably guessed."

Nicky sighed, dropping her eyes, then thought better of it and forced herself to look directly into his. "Yes. I apologize for that. You probably could have gotten him then, huh?" She attempted a smile, tried at some kind of humor.

Bourne finally took his seat, although he didn't relax. The line of his shoulders remained taut with nervous, bunched energy, the muscles at his temples and neck flickering. "It wasn't your fault."

_It was mine_.

This remained unsaid.

Nicky took a breath, picked up her pen and stared at her little notebook in an attempt to collect her thoughts. Her lips parted, and she hesitated like that for a moment before speaking. "How have you been, other than that? Headaches? Exhaustion? Any changes?" These were entirely routine questions, ones that she'd asked him what was beginning to feel like thousands of times before, but when she looked up, anticipating his response, he was giving her a funny look, head cocked almost childishly to the right.

"I think I want to change my Treadstone contact—get out of Paris, if I need to." He did not say this loudly but the words seemed to echo hollowly in her head, deafening.

She did not allow surprise to register in her features—she was good at that, disguising her response, the gut reactions that showed so easily on the faces of everyone else—but if she were to be completely honest with herself, she wasn't actually that shocked. She found that she was becoming able to predict Bourne's actions in certain situations—he was the human equivalent of a well-oiled machine, after all—and this request was not unexpected after the events that had transpired between them in the past month. His training, the protocol that had been instilled within him, would not allow the continuation of such unorthodox events.

_(Distractions, arguments… inclinations)_

Nicky forced her tone into neutrality. "Alright, then. I'll phone it into headquarters in New York and we'll see what can be done." A persistent ache formed within her ribcage as she said the words. She inhaled and dropped her eyes, making an insignificant note in her book.

"Thanks. I mean it, Nicky."

At the sound her name, softened by the grain of his so-familiar voice, she offered a distracted but not insincere smile. "No problem. I should have an answer for you next month."

He nodded, quite obviously watching her as she took another breath, and continued with her customary questioning.

()()()

Nicky did not contact headquarters and she said she would. In fact, during the next week she managed to push Bourne's request to the back of her mind entirely, putting most of her mental faculties and Treadstone's resources into assisting Bourne's search for Chireau. Daily, she sent him blueprints, longitudes and latitudes, coordinates, names, cities, addresses, brisk, businesslike messages by e-mail. She did not speak with him, but she did imagine him, his dark figure flitting in and out of the crowds of the cities to which she sent him—London, The Hague, Lyon, Torino. Chireau was… elusive.

Nicky's life progressed as such in the following weeks. She kept herself busy, sleeping little and she worked logistics and info for Bourne and the other agents. It was not the exciting life of a government agent that she had anticipated, but it kept her days full, kept her mind off whatever loneliness she was sure would augment upon Bourne's transfer. It was not exactly what she could call a peaceful existence, but its routine allowed her to relax for several blessed intervals each day. She'd been living in Paris for nearly a year, and spent her spare time in her favorite nooks of the city, sidewalk cafés that she enjoyed, winding side streets that she explored. The encompassing sadness that had seemed to dominate her life for the last several months she pushed to the background in her mind, focusing her attention instead on her work and simple joys, coming to terms with living alone in a foreign city.

She'd been kidding herself, though, if she thought this strange limbo between depression and acceptance could survive. The relative peace of her existence ended the night that Jason Bourne broke into her apartment at an hour when not even the whores of Pigalle were awake.

()()()

Nicky was jolted awake by a discordant crash downstairs. She lay awake, attempting to control the noise of her shaking breath, eyes gleaming in the gloom, hearing nothing but the pulse of blood in her ear canals until the sound of a quiet, devastating creak seeped through the door that separated her from the staircase.

She threw up the bedcovers and fumbled in the dark for the pistol she kept in the drawer by her bed but never used. Shivering as her bare feet met the lifeless hardwood of her bedroom floor, she stood, holding the gun shakily at her side. She debated announcing her presence, but in the end decided against it—best not to give the intruder a target. She walked towards the door, setting her feet down as carefully as she had ever done, the rise and fall of her chest shallow in fright. She grasped to doorknob, twisting silently. She threw open the door with the violent screech of unoiled hinges, whipping the gun up to point at the dark figure in the stairwell.

The first thing she noticed was that Jason Bourne looked horrible. Really, truly horrible. There were sickly gray smudges under his eyes, which appeared puffy and swollen with what was likely a combination of fatigue and dehydration. His normally rigid, military posture was slack, his shoulders slouched, arms hanging limply at his sides.

The second thing she thought to consider was why he had broken into headquarters in the dead of night and was currently standing several stairs down from where she stood, frozen midstep. She stared at him, the pistol still leveled at his forehead. "Jason…?"

"Put that fucking thing down, Nicky. You look ridiculous," he rasped, sounding both exhausted and immensely irritated.

Nicky's eyes flicked to the gun, her fingers stiff and white as they gripped the stock. She let it drop. "Jason? What's going on? Are you okay?" She allowed the part of her with a medical degree dominate her instincts as she attempted to determine whether her was in danger of collapsing. "You look horrible."

He didn't reply, although Nicky saw his jaw tremble with tension. He stared at her with eyes half-lidded with fatigue for another moment, before abruptly brushing past her into her room. Nicky stood for a moment, mouth agape, before turning and following him into the room where she slept. He was pacing, full of nervous energy and adrenaline, obviously the only two things keeping him standing. He was uncharacteristically clumsy, stumbling and letting out a violent curse as he caught his hip on the corner of her dresser.

"Okay." Nicky sighed, walking over to place her pistol back in the drawer by her bed. She heard a frustrated grunt behind her and suddenly Bourne was beside her, pulling the drawer open, grabbing the gun and pushing the safety. He gave her an exasperated look.

"Why are you here, Jason? What's wrong? Should I be worried? Do I need to call Conklin?" He stayed maddeningly silent, pacing for several more seconds before turning to face her. His lips were pressed together, bloodless, and yet another tic appeared suddenly at his temple.

"I hesitated." She barely heard it, so quiet was his voice.

She shook her head. "What? Maybe you need to sit down." He really did look terrible.

'God damnit! I don't need to sit down! Don't you understand? I _hesitated_. I fucking hesitated! I was holding the gun to his head, I was ready for the kill, and I stopped! This doesn't happen to me!" His fists were clenched as if he were about to hit something, and Nicky felt the back of her knees hit her bed as she backed away from the vehemence and frustration in his tone.

"O-okay, Jason. Calm down, it's alright. Where is Chireau?" She tried to keep any form of tremor from her voice. If Chireau was still alive, if he had seen Bourne's _face_, he could have followed him. She tried not to think about the danger they were both in.

He stopped pacing, looked at her strangely. "In the morgue, Nicky. I killed him."

"But you said—"

"Haven't you been listening? If I hadn't killed him, do you think I would be here instead of going after his head? I said I hesitated. I was holding the gun to his head and I stopped!" He paused, dropped his eyes to the floor as he turned away from her and spoke as if to himself. "I never think about it, I never think about killing. But… suddenly I wondered… Did he have children? A girlfriend? I… and then…" He had been staring at his hands, flexing his fingers, but now he dragged his eyes to hers and looked so unnerved that she instinctively took a step towards him.

"What?" She asked without thinking.

"I thought about what you would think."

This, combined with the sudden intensity of his gaze, left Nicky speechless. She quite simply did not know how to respond to his words. They were so absurd, so alien, that she wasn't even sure that she'd heard them correctly. She meant to be a nonjudgmental entity, entirely neutral, a faceless employee. That he would think about her at all outside the few hours of their correspondence each month was unthinkable. She whispered his name, her voice a question, but quieted when he sent a harsh look in her direction.

"And then I pulled the trigger."

She waited what must have been several minutes at least, each of them staring and the other, the muscles of Nicky's legs feeling suddenly very weak. She couldn't help but feel that his coming here meant something very important, she just wasn't sure what. And it frightened her. She opened her mouth, closed it. "Why are you telling me this?" she whispered. "If you killed him you did your job, Jason" Her calm usage of his name was a hopeless grasp at normality that fooled neither of them, and yet the fingers of her voice scrabbled at the cliff's edge.

He resumed his pacing, although somewhat less urgently. "Isn't this what you do? Aren't you supposed to be my shrink or something?" He paused, and Nicky, sensing that this was bravado, false assuredness, remained silent as she crossed the room, cutting off Bourne's path, and retrieved a cotton robe from her closet. She pulled it on over her t-shirt and pajama pants. She could feel him watching her, heard him exhale as he seemed to resign. "I don't know, Nicky. I don't know why I'm telling you all of this." He sounded so tired.

His constant movement was making her nervous. "Jason, sit down," she sighed. He stopped pacing suddenly, pulled out the chair behind her desk—it made a jarring scrape of a sound that caused the muscles in Nicky's neck to tighten harshly—and sat quickly, his military training making obeying a direct command as natural as breathing.

Nicky tried to make her voice as gentle as possible as she watched Bourne, once seated, sway faintly in his chair from exhaustion. "You know what I think about Treadstone and about what you do doesn't matter. I may as well not have an opinion. Now, when was the last time you slept?"

"I don't know."

"Well I think you should—"

"Something is happening to me, Nicky." He abruptly stood again, as these words obviously disturbed him and, once they were said, they brought back some of the adrenaline that had been driving him.

"What do you mean?" Nicky said, infinitely gently and somewhat lamely.

"Something's not right."

"With what?"

"With me, damnit! With _me_! I'm… Nicky, it feels like I'm starting to come apart. I feel different… I forget things sometimes." He paused, his eyes searching her carefully neutral face. Inside she was anything but calm—she did not like being unable to predict his actions, she was learning, and this situation was anything but ordinary. Outside she appeared completely cool, still as ever as she schooled her expression into one that might exert some kind of calm over him. She couldn't see his eyes in the dark. The moonlight passed only over the planes of his cheeks and forehead, obscuring all emotion but for the hauntingly gaunt shadows of his face.

"I forget important things, like… like my parents' names, like how I got into this program. Where I'm from. It always comes back, but for a while… I don't know what's happening to me." Nicky was alarmed to hear a faint catch in his throat, a tremor where strength and control had been before. "And these fucking headaches _never _go away."

Nicky took a deep steadying breath, suddenly unable to look at him. Her chest felt somehow both light and constricted, simultaneously. "Okay, Jason, alright. Why don't you relax—there's a couch downstairs, and you can sleep." Nicky sighed again. She really had no choice now—she would have to call headquarters in New York and have Bourne removed from the program. He simply could not continue like this, strung out and caving in, his mind falling apart before her eyes. Of course there had been signs—sudden bouts of temper, increasingly unpredictable behavior, his uncharacteristically long search for Chireau—but Nicky had been dead-set against acknowledging them. But his admission of memory loss could not be blamed on stress, could not be attributed to her misinterpretation of his words. Transient retrograde amnesia was a serious diagnosis, often a symptom of deep psychological and neurological damage, and Treadstone had to be informed immediately.

Bourne was still sitting as before, staring and the floor. He seemed to not have heard her previous suggestion. Nicky rubbed her fist over her eyes, her fingers massaging her temple to counter the sudden acute headache she had developed. How long before the other agents began exhibiting similar symptoms?

_What did they _do _to these guys?_

"Jason, did you hear me?"

"Yes."

"Well why don't you go down stairs and rest while I make some calls? I—"

"You're going to call _them,_ aren't you?"

Nicky paused, considering her words carefully. "Yes, if you mean Treadstone. You've really given me no choice, Jason, telling me all this—"

"I can't _believe _this!" She flinched at the sheer volume and violence of his tone. He stood up so abruptly that he upended his chair, sending it flipping over with a stark clatter. Nicky stood up almost as quickly, edging instinctively towards the location of her now hidden handgun. He saw this and let loose a bitterly sour laugh. "Are you scared of me, Nicky? Does what I just said frighten you?"

She balked at his menace and remained silent.

_Yes._

Her spine was rigid, her mouth dry. This entire situation was so surreal to her that she was caught off guard by nearly everything he said, her pulse jumping in her neck.

His eyes flicked to the space between her and where he knew the gun was hidden. Quietly, hauntingly, he addressed her. "You would never even fire a shot, you know. _They _made sure of that. You'd never even touch gunmetal." It was low and hard to her ears, empty of familiarity. He advanced towards her, slowly and without hesitation. Nicky swallowed hard, unable to move, let alone fire and accurate shot were she to attempt to defend herself from the brunt of his skill. She began to feel sick, her stomach churning. She instinctively looked from side to side for an escape as he neared her, knowing it was futile to ever try. Her rational mind knew he wouldn't hurt her, but her instincts screamed at her to _run hide leave fight _anyway. He stopped less than a foot from her. "I could kill you twelve different ways right now and you wouldn't even have time to scream."

There was no humor in his eyes as he said this, no expression at all. A tremor shot up Nicky's spine, and she suddenly forgot to breath. She began to shake, unable to control herself. He obviously noticed this because he let out his breath in a whoosh. "Oh Jesus. Christ, Nicky. I'm not going to hurt you. Fuck." He spun quickly, took several steps away from her, but seemed to think better of it and turned to face her again.

"_Why _would you call them? Don't you understand that this is all their fault? They… _did _something to me. I just can't remember _what_."

Nicky watched a twitch in his jaw as he said this. She felt extremely light-headed, both from the shock of the last ten minutes and, if she had to admit it to herself, his sudden and unnerving closeness. "Of course I understand, Jason," she said, very gently, attempting to use the soothing quality of her voice to calm him. It was a trait most psychologists learned at some point in their careers. "I understand what you must be feeling. But if they did this, they probably know how to fix it, right? I'm just..."

He was in her face in a second, having moved so fast she hadn't seen him until he was right in front of her. They were nearly touching, his face inches away from hers. She stopped thinking. His bloodshot eyes stared into hers.

"Stop," he hissed into her face. "Just _stop_, Nicky. Don't you ever get _tired _of being their bitch?"

Her mouth dropped open, her fear dissipating immediately as rage, red and empowering, filled the pit of her stomach. "How _dare _you, Jason. How dare you judge what I do? This is my job, just as killing people is yours. I'm trying to help you!"

She was _mad_. All her professionalism, all her reserve, seemed to fly right out the open window behind her and her fists clenched into angry rocks at her side.

"No," he said venomously. "No you're not. You're trying to cover your own ass by informing an agency that doesn't give a shit about either of us."

Nicky tried to maintain the anger, feed that hard feeling in her chest, but she could not help but feel faintly hurt by his words. Apparently this showed on her face, because she watched with great interest as his expression changed, his brow furrowed in what could have been confusion.

Is this what he thought? That she didn't care about his wellbeing? About _him_? That she was nothing more than a government tool with no feelings, no inclinations, no passions of her own? Had she not shown him compassion when no one else would?

"You misunderstand me, Jason," she replied lowly.

"Clearly. You know what I don't understand, Nicky? I can read exactly what everyone is thinking. It's not hard—I just look at their shoulders, where they're looking, what their hands are doing. I can read everyone…except you. You're a blank slate. What kind of person is like that?" He paused angrily, hating her. "Only sometimes, like that time with the violin…" He trailed off, his eyes dark in the shadows, studying. "It's very…frustrating."

She tried to let the psychiatrist in her take over, tried to let it analyze and diagnose, protect her, but her brain was oddly fuzzy, slow to react to her commands. She watched him as he neared her. "H-How could you think that I don't want to help you, Jason?" _That I don't care about you? _It came out a whisper, and she hated it, hated her obvious vulnerability around him. Sometimes she felt like she didn't understand herself when he looked at her like he was now.

"Do you know what they'll do to me if you report this? I can't go back as a civilian. I know too much. Once pumping me full of drugs makes things worse they'll have to lock me up."

To her horror, Nicky began to feel traitorous tears welling at the corners of her eyes. She dropped her head, avoiding him, unaccountably ashamed. "I know. I _know_." She choked, her voice strangled with what she had to say. "You're having episodes of amnesia. By telling me this you've given me no choice." She stepped closer to him, instinctively, entreatingly. It was a mistake.

He was against her in a second, and she gasped from the sensation of it, the long forgotten feel of another warm human body. She felt, in a blur, her back against the wall and she was suddenly trapped between the two unmovable surfaces as his chest held her against her bedroom wall. He was so close, his nose inches from her forehead as he glared imperiously down at her, and Nicky noted with shocked disgust that, if she was not mistaken, her body seemed to be having difficulty deciding whether to be frightened or aroused.

"No, Nicky." At the sound of such violence in his tone, her heart kicked up as her sympathetic nervous system seemed to decide on _fear fear fear_. She began to tremble. "You've given _me_ no choice."

()()()

**A/N**: So it's been _years_. And it sucks. Blah blah blah, I've been busy, school, life, whatever. You all are going through the same thing, undoubtedly, so it's not really an excuse, but it's all I've got. But it's summer now, which means I have a little more free time, which means more writing!

I actually wrote this chapter and the next (which should be arriving tomorrow) in Peru a YEAR ago. In a little blue notebook because I didn't have a computer. It should tell you something about my life that I hadn't gotten all of it into a word document until approximately 10 minutes ago. Sigh. I hope it's up to snuff—as you all know I'm a little rusty :). Hope everyone is well!


	8. Interrelation

**Interrelation**

()()()

"_No, Nicky." At the sound of such violence in his tone, her heart kicked up as her sympathetic nervous system seemed to decide on _fear fear fear_. She began to tremble. "You've given me no choice."_

As she realized what he meant, what he meant to do, the tears that had been threatening to spill finally did, tracking their way down her cheeks and shaking lips. "J-Jason, please. Let's talk about this."

He pushed harder until she was forced to gasp against the weight of his body. "That's all we've _been _doing, can't you see? For the past _year_. And it hasn't helped _any _of it."

"Oh God," she moaned, instinctively terrified past reason, despite all her knowledge and all her confidence. More tears, glistening as she quivered.

He was quiet. Nicky blinked (two more twin droplets) and watched him as the tension suddenly left his face. His eyes flickered downwards, towards the direction where Nicky could feel a lone tear, glinting at her jawline.

"Shit," he muttered, the heat of his body suddenly gone as he darted away from her. Nicky forced several long breaths in, and her chest heaved with the effort of it. She closed her eyes, sensing that his mood had shifted yet again, and she was momentarily out of danger. When she could open her eyes again she found that he had slid down the wall next to her and was now seated at her feet, knees bent, hands cradling his sore head. Nicky was feeling such an extraordinary mixture of emotions—rising anger, waning fear, encompassing fatigue, and confusing sympathy—that she could hardly formulate coherent thoughts, let alone speak.

They remained in such a silence for some time, several minutes at least, Nicky leaning against the wall and Bourne seated at her feet, the only sound their mutually labored breathing.

Finally, when she felt maybe her voice wouldn't falter, Nicky spoke. "You should leave, Bourne. We can discuss this further when you've had some sleep and have considered exactly what you've just done."

"Fuck, Nicky," he said softly. "I'm sorry. I'm just… something weird is going on with me and I can't… I can't _deal_ with it. I didn't mean to… I didn't mean to hurt you."

He sounded so small, like a confused child, that Nicky had to fight the urge to sink to her knees and take him into her arms, despite what had just transpired between them. Her breath shook as she exhaled. "Just… shut up for a second. I have to think." She didn't know what else to say. She wanted it quiet, she wanted the words—hurtful, intimate, angry, dangerous—that had just passed between them to settle so she could _think_ without hearing them over and over like a nightmare in her head.

She just didn't know what to _do_. All of her training, all her CIA education told her that Bourne had to be relieved of his duties at Treadstone immediately. _Sooner _than immediately. The minute he'd exploded at her last month she should have had him removed from the program. She might have even saved him from whatever odd limbo he was inhabiting now, his memory failing him in unexpected moments, his body too faltering from exhaustion and enormous stress. Had she reported his behavior earlier he might have simply been transferred to another sector of the agency, one without such inherent stress and severity.

But _now_, now that he had told her such things, now that he had _threatened_ her, now that his mind appeared to be falling apart at the edges, his predictions about the agency's course of action were frighteningly prophetic. She knew he would not be transferred, and yet neither could he be released as a civilian, free to spout secrets from his-as they would undoubtedly see it—broken mind. Both knowledge and apparent instability were threats of equal danger for Treadstone.

A great flow of guilt washed over her as she leaned against the wall, closing her eyes when yet more tears wetted her eyelashes. If she had just done her _job_, done as Conklin had instructed her more than a year ago, Jason Bourne would be happily working some lower level position in Langley or elsewhere in the U.S. (or at least he would be more happy than he was now, she thought sardonically), instead of sitting on her bedroom floor with his world split open. And then she hated herself for her terrible selfishness. Her head hit the wall as she thought of this before she slowly slid down to sit next to Bourne, who hadn't moved at all.

She couldn't look at him. "This… this is my fault, Jason. It's… I should have told them a month ago that they should have you removed from the program. I almost _did._ But… I don't know… something stopped me. If I'd… well, we wouldn't be here, would we?" She laughed darkly, staring at the floor and then their knees, side by side by side by side, waiting for an outburst, a reaction, anything, from the man at her side. But nothing. For ages he was silent, and it was only then that Nicky ventured a glance in his direction, a quick flash of her pupils to her left.

_Jason…_

She first saw the muscles in his neck, pronounced and hard with astounding tension. His hands were crabbed horribly over his face, as if he wished to hold in all the thoughts and memories that threatened malignantly to escape. His silence was awful, total, and Nicky was unsure as to whether he had even registered her words. "Jason… did you hear me?"

_Silence._

"Jason…" she repeated softly, leaning towards him instinctively. When he didn't respond, she unthinkingly—_stupidly_—raised her hand, laying it so gently, so lightly that the contact could no way be interpreted as deriving from violence, on his shoulder. He started suddenly, taking a sharp breath like an edge, and looked around, very obviously disoriented, until his eyes focused on her face. Nicky didn't loosen her grip, both her maternal and psychologist's instincts telling her that what he needed right now was connection, touch, and she allowed her fingertips to carefully knead the seemingly petrified muscles beneath her hand.

Nicky was fairly sure that it went not unnoticed by either of them that this was the first time in the year they'd known one another that she had purposefully (deliberately, cautiously) touched him. He studied her face, her eyes, one moment more, and then suddenly seemed to accept the intrusion, his eyes softening minutely before he dropped his head so that his chin rested on his chest.

Nicky did not let up, moving her hand without thinking to the flesh at the base of his neck and continuing to loosen the muscles there. A nagging voice in her head told her she could no longer attribute her actions to the instincts of a mother or a doctor (perhaps something else?).

She felt a little sick.

She heard him take a deep breath, felt the flesh beneath hers relax and soften.

"You couldn't have known, Nicky." It was soft and low and surprising, as she had assumed he hadn't heard her.

"I _should _have," se muttered fiercely and didn't include out loud what she said to herself in her head. _I should have known better. I should _know _better. About a lot of things_.

As her heart fluttered. As he was still staring at her.

"Damnit, quit blaming yourself. You're not the one to blame," he said quietly, frustrated with her.

She removed her hand, watched his head bow further into his breast. "Why don't you get some sleep downstairs. We can talk about this in the morning." She saw him nod slightly, a mere tilt of his chin, and he rose slowly like it hurt him.

After she heard his slow footsteps recede down the staircase, after she was sure he had collapsed on the couch downstairs (a dull thump against the creaky hardwood floors assured her of his compliance), Nicky moved—trance-like, slowly, placing each foot carefully—towards her desk. It was much smaller, less imposing, more personal, than her desk downstairs and she preferred it, preferred the homey-ness of it, and often used it to write letters, snippets of stories, and journal entries.

She reached for the phone.

()()()

"Code in, Ms. Parsons."

"Everest."

"Why are you calling on a non-secure line?" Came Conklin's brisk and unpleasant tones over the phone.

She was sorely tempted, after the kind of night she'd had, to snap that for Treadstone no line seemed ever secure enough except for the scrambled, tapped, extremely untraceable line downstairs. She didn't. "Bourne is downstairs."

"And why does what you mean to tell me require that Bourne not be present?" Nicky opened her mouth, closed it. She felt an extreme lightness in her chest and her breath reflexively shortened.

"Parsons?"

God, she hated his voice.

She couldn't think. She couldn't reason. Words flowed from her mouth with neither her knowledge nor her permission.

"It's only that I dislike speaking to headquarters in the presence of the agents, sir." Her voice sounded surprisingly normal and not her own simultaneously, composed and steady.

"I see. Understandable, I suppose."

"I just wanted to code in before I go to bed and tell you that Bourne got the target. Chireau is finished."

"It could have waited." He sounded sour.

"I was up anyway, and you're six hours behind."

"Fine. I'll be sending you his next assignment within the next 24 hours."

"Goodnight," she said, but he'd hung up.

()()()

Nicky sat motionless for what could have been an hour before she started to shake. _Again. _

A series of situations filtered through her mind, the repercussions of her unthinkingly stupid decision (or lack of decision, as the words had seemed to jump out of her mouth of their own accord). She could go to prison. No, that was stupid, because she wouldn't go to prison because Treadstone didn't exist. _Couldn't _exist. She didn't want to think about Treadstone's alternative to prison.

Jason Bourne could crack, his overstressed brain could finally give out and everyone within arms' or pistol's length would be dead. _She _could crack, the stress of the lie taxing her already fragile psyche.

Just when she couldn't take it anymore she felt herself rise from the chair, felt her legs carry her down the stairs.

The lines of tension that had so prominently featured on his face when she'd last seen him had melted away in slumber, leaving him looking young, _so _young, perhaps even as young as her. Only a slight furrowing of the brow remained, light wrinkles between his eyebrows that gave him the unnerving look of a petulant child.

But he _was _handsome. She could not help but notice and almost… _almost_ hated herself for it. The nearly poetic way the moonlight, pouring into the room through the window to his right, floated gently across the angular plains of his face. His arms were crossed protectively over his chest, which rose and fell evenly with each sleeping breath.

"Jason… Jason, wake up." Her voice rented the tranquility of the room and she cringed. When he failed to stir, when her words failed to coax a reaction from his sleeping semi-consciousness, she lifted her hand and placed it lightly on his forearm.

All Nicky could register was a shadow of motion and a blinding pain at her wrist. _God damnit, why don't I _ever _learn? _Bourne had shot up so fast that she had barely blinked before he was standing, his eyes coldly, expressionlessly and without recognition, narrowed in her direction. His fingers gripped her wrist in a hold that to the outside observer would have seemed almost normal but for the circumstances, although his fingertips pressed just _there_, the strength of his hands deceptively sending jolts of pain biting up her arm to her elbow and beyond. She gasped.

"Ow…" was all she had the presence of mind to utter, and even through the pain she heard it echo lamely about the room. But (blessedly, mercifully) she felt the terrible pressure loosen.

Bourne stared at her, recognizing her finally. His eyes softened and dropped. He let her go as if her skin had stung, and she heard him mutter something in a language she didn't recognize and was surprised by how much it irked her.

"Sorry," he finally said, and it seemed almost as silly as her exclamation of pain moments earlier. "It's probably best not to… touch me when I'm sleeping." As he finished he dropped his gaze again, and had Nicky not known better she would have interpreted this as embarrassment.

"I'll keep that in mind," she replied wryly, but sobered quickly. "I should have known, it was my fault." Something in her face must have changed, must have faltered, because she felt rather than saw his attention zero in on her, his yet agile mind drawing conclusions that she dreaded.

"You called them." It wasn't a question, and his voice was cold.

She released a gasping, desperate breath, unable to further contain the panic that welled over her, that had been threatening under her skin since Conklin had hung up minutes (hours?) before. He took a step away from her, clearly taken aback. "Jason! I couldn't… I couldn't _do _it!" To her unending horror, she was leaking again and turned her face away. "_What did I do?_"

"Jesus," he murmured, likely as a response to both her confession and her apparently fragile mental state. "_Jesus."_

Finding her knees suddenly weak, Nicky sank onto the couch, her shaking fingers spidering over her face. She felt Bourne sit beside her. "They'll fire me. I'll disappear. You'll…" She trailed off, almost choked, and peered sideways at him. He was staring at her, exhaustion and something else softening the hard angles of his face. But his tone was business-like.

"Nicky, calm down. _Nicky." _He repeated her name when she pressed her palms harder into her mouth, sharper, because he probably could tell her hearing was all messed up from the sound of her blood pumping, throbbing in her ears. Her shoulders jerked and she finally caught his eyes. "Just relax. We'll think of something."

"I just can't believe I did that!" She blurted, the sound muffled by her hands as if though a wall. They sat in silence—always silence, always immense quiet between them—for a very long time. Nicky didn't know how long.

They sat until her breathing calmed she thought he might have gone back to sleep. She braved what she hoped was a sly glance in his direction. He appeared to be studying her. "What?" she snapped, shutting her mouth quickly when she heard how harsh her own voice sounded, hoarse from crying with a distinctly bitter edge. He seemed to hesitate, the tip of his tongue set against his teeth, before speaking.

"Thank you, Nicky."

Of all things, she had not expected that. And because she was feeling awfully embittered and immature, she lied, "I don't know what I was thinking about when I did what I did, but it definitely wasn't you, so keep your gratitude to yourself, thanks very much," and felt like a child.

A crooked smile. The first ever. Her blood quickened. He went on, either unaware that he had just made her forget her own name or too polite to comment on it. "Still, you probably saved my life tonight. Or at least any life worth living." He said it earnestly, still looking at her.

Hopelessly, desperately, she held his gaze. "Jason, what are we going to _do?_" She felt herself unconsciously drawing towards him, the one other person in the world who could share, could help bear the load of her fear and desperation. "I can't help you on my own. We need facilities, you need an MRI. I need to consult with other doctors… I know about some therapies, but I've been out of the loop for a while now, undoubtedly things have changed, advancements have been made. And if they find out about what's happening to you and about what I've done…" She stopped, breathless, afraid again.

He made a sound low in his throat, effectively shushing her, and then let out a sigh. Nicky felt it wash over her neck not unpleasantly. "I don't know right now. We'll figure it out."

_We_.

Gone was the hollow, frightening, stone man she remembered from their monthly meetings. Perhaps it was gratitude, perhaps pity, or perhaps even exhaustion, but Jason Bourne, at the moment, was more like a human being than she had ever seen him.

And her only friend in the world.

()()()


	9. Examination

**Examination**

()()()

A wash of sunlight, clear and lovely from her bedroom window, awoke Nicky. It was an extremely pleasant way to wake up, and for a minute she sighed happily and extended her arms over her head, arching her torso like a panther, stretching her shoulder joints and muscles, willing out the lingering tension she seemed to always carry there. She let her eyes meander over the familiarity of her room, dappled in the morning sunlight. She chanced a glance at her clock, and giggled a little to note that it was nearing eleven. She didn't normally sleep in, and it felt like a luxury.

And then she remembered why she had needed to sleep so late. Why she had been up past normal hours last night.

She sat up with a strangled gasp, adrenaline pumping in her veins and causing her heart to race as if she had overslept the morning of a very important engagement. All the tension she had eased from her shoulders came shooting back and she dropped her head in a vain attempt to loosen it.

After she woke him last night Jason had groggily begun to gather his things, obviously intent on returning to his own apartment, but she had insisted he take her couch for the rest of the night. After his behavior (after what he had _told _her), she was awfully worried about him. She had little to no real knowledge about his condition, no real assessment at all, a failing she planned to remedy shortly.

If only she could _think_. Last night all she had longed for was some time alone, some time to contemplate the barrage of information Jason had hurled at her, but now that she had that solitude she found it was no use. The panic that had bubbled over last night was still there—she could feel it like a heavy, hot stone in her stomach.

And _why _was she so frightened? She could hardly name the reason. Of course, she had lied to her boss, lied to a very powerful faction of the CIA, but this was not the same as committing treason, she was sure. She had not betrayed anyone, really. She had simply omitted information. She was not even sure Bourne represented any real threat to Treadstone at all. He seemed still perfectly able to carry out whatever task he was assigned. She was sure—and Jason had assured her last night—that it would not present any real challenge to keep this situation a minor one; they would simply attempt to solve it, attempt to solve _him, _on their own. And yet the rising fear remained, causing her breath to shorten even now. As she had last night, she envisioned punishment, prison, or worse. Had they really ingrained obedience and such twisted loyalty so easily, so subtly that she hadn't even noticed, into her psyche? And if so, what else were they capable of? How else had they modified her most personal values, her morality?

She imagined that perhaps Jason asked himself these very same questions. The image of Cardena's head blooming open flashed before her eyes yet again, and she flinched, tried not to remember how that stark picture—Bourne holding the smoking gun as the body slumped, suddenly, terribly, jarringly lifeless—had haunted her for months after that awful night.

Then again, maybe he didn't.

Her eyes wandered to the ever-present pile of manila folders sitting on her desk. Each contained pictures, statistics and _modi operandi_ of men who would soon be dead. Maybe months, maybe even years, but their time would come as they stared into the blank eyes of a Treadstone operative, as sure as a hangover after a night of heavy drinking. She barely even thought about it now as she dished out information to the agents, information that would lead to the end of a human being's life.

Her breath caught in her throat and she shuddered as no small amount of self-hatred poured over her, a tsunami atop the tempest of fear and doubt that already rocked against the shores of her being.

_I never thought I would be this person_.

_God_, she hated it.

But out of necessity she shoved this onslaught away, swallowed hard, and tried not to shiver as she found the floor cold as ever against her bare feet. Sunlight was not enough to warm this place.

()()()

She was unsurprised to find Jason still asleep downstairs, his mouth slightly open, one leg hanging off the edge of the couch. Her attempt to remain silent failed miserably as one of the old floorboards creaked under her footsteps at the base of the stairway, and he jerked awake with a muffled sound. She secretly observed his obvious confusion, fascinated, as he looked about the room almost frantically before his eyes settled on her and seemed to calm as he remembered where he was. She smiled at him, somehow composed in her cotton shorts and the tank top she'd slept in. "I was going to make some coffee if you want some," she offered, her voice low and hoarse from sleep. He shook his head.

"No thanks. I should probably get going." He averted his eyes, not immune to the inherent awkwardness of the morning after a night such as they'd had.

"No breakfast?"

He hesitated, hunger obviously a factor in his decision-making. He nodded, once, swinging his legs over to sit properly on the couch. "I haven't eaten much the past few days."

Sympathy rose, an all-too-frequent friend when she was around him, in her chest. He followed her, both of them barefoot, to the secluded corner of the room that served as her small but functional kitchen. She set the coffee going and leaned into her tiny fridge, absently noting that a trip to the market was in order. A few eggs and the last of her gruyère would have to do. She swiped a sizeable pat of butter—if one thing living in France for the past year had taught her, it was the necessity of butter—into a skillet and waited for it to sizzle, whisking eggs in a chipped bowl and tracking Jason out of the corner of her eye. He was watching her. She couldn't think of a thing to say, but their silence was not uncomfortable.

He found himself a glass and filled it with water from the sink, leaned his hips against the counter and sipped. It was a tableau of domestic life, and Nicky almost had to duck her head to hide a smile as the irony of that observation hit her. Last night she'd thought he meant to kill her.

The butter crackled pleasantly. His eyes lingered over the blue flame of her gas stove. "I can't believe I slept through the night," he said, still absorbed in the flame as she lifted the pan and tilted it about to spread the melting fat. "I usually don't sleep very well."

_If at all_, she bet he wished he felt safe enough to say. There was an unfamiliar candor in his voice, and she wondered exactly how desperate for relief—physical, mental, emotional—he'd been last night.

She smiled faintly as she poured the beaten eggs into the pan, enjoying the familiar sound as they settled in. "You were exhausted. You're body has to run down sometime, despite what they've told you," she said meaningfully, looking up from the pan to catch his eyes and hold them. "Don't forget that. The standards they set… they're unrealistic."

He looked shocked in response to her sincerity. She let out a laugh. "Am I not allowed to speak my mind after last night?" It was almost an accusation. His face darkened at the memory, and she turned back to the omelet as she sprinkled grated cheese over the eggs. Silence, for a moment, and then she heard his intake of breath before he spoke.

"Nicky, I'm really sorry about that… I shouldn't have come, dragged you into this… I don't know what I was thinking, threatening you like that. It was… despicable." His voice cracked on the last syllable but she pretended not to notice, not looking at him, waving it away like it was nothing even though it was anything but. She had been trying to pretend like nothing had changed between them but it was a fruitless effort. She despised him a little more, trusted him less, and felt more connected with him than ever before. Such a strange rile of emotions, and she was very aware of their incongruity.

"I'm glad you told me," she assured him (for it was true), but when he met her eyes, obviously doubtful, she smiled ruefully. "Well, I'm glad to _know_, at least. I'm not so thrilled about the position that puts me in." She parted the omelet—one half decidedly larger than the other—and handed the bigger portion to him on a chipped plate. "Forks in there," she offered, motioning towards a drawer next to him. She settled her hips against the countertop, watching him as he began to devour the food in earnest. She frowned; he must have been starving.

She glanced down at her own portion, all of a sudden not very hungry at all. Feeling her stomach churn, she set the plate down with a clatter on the countertop. She had thought she would be fine, that his being there would not disrupt whatever calm she had constructed for herself when she'd pulled herself together not half an hour before, but his presence abruptly seemed huge, foreign, and unpleasant. The events of the previous night weighed heavily against her ribs, and her breath grew shallow. He was a reminder of her fear and her shame—shame for what she did, for who she had become, the same shame that had slammed against her in her bedroom earlier. Having him here made them fresh like a spike in her mind.

He had finished eating and was staring at her as if he could read her like the morning paper. She fidgeted, finally met his knowing gaze. "I'd like for you to come back tomorrow, if you can. I'm going to do some research and we'll talk then. I want to get a better idea of your condition, and I think it's best if we start immediately, before they send you another assignment. Is that okay?"

He nodded, a short, contained gesture, and she was almost touched despite herself to see him rinse his plate and place it neatly in her tiny dishwasher. "I'll come by around four," he replied, brushing past her to collect his jacket (dark, nondescript, like everything else he owned) and shoes. She remained where she was, staring at the floor, acutely uncomfortable for a myriad of reasons she could hardly name.

(Sometimes, around him, she felt like she didn't know herself. But she would never say it, never admit it to anyone, even though she was almost sure he knew.)

She felt a touch at her elbow, and looked up, startled, to see him close before her. She hated seeing concern in his eyes, and did not as much hate the feel of his hand against her skin. "Are you going to be alright?" He asked, ducking his head a bit to look into her eyes, to gauge her response.

She stared back. "Yes. Are you?" It was smartly said, even a bit brusque as she veiled her discomfort.

He nodded again, quiet as ever. She wanted to scream.

Just before he left, his hand on the doorknob, he turned. "This will get easier." His voice echoed in the room, and she felt as if its meaning were as hollow as the sound. She looked up, their eyes connected—a moment, only a moment of odd heat—and then he was out the door. Nicky leaned against the wall for a bit, her head tilted back as her eyes gazed at the ceiling, counting the little cracks there. Then she went into the kitchen and threw the rest of the omelet in the trash and set the dishwasher running.

()()()

After a rather fruitless hour on her laptop and an unproductive fifteen minutes scanning her not-unsubstantial library of medical textbooks, Nicky found that further research was needed—she already had a working knowledge of the relevant information contained within these sources, having boned up on possible side-effects of stress upon accepting her job at Treadstone. She decided to make a visit to the Interuniversity Medical Library in Paris.

Attempting to slog through reference books in French was no fun at all and relatively useless—her French was yet far from perfect. Luckily she found a small section of English books, most of them far outdated. She collected an armful of the books she could use and sequestered herself in a corner of the large, stately room that acted as the library's primary study area.

Nicky soon felt the tension of the morning and the night before begin drain from her spine. She still felt more-or-less at home in an academic setting such as this, and it felt good to lapse back into the pattern so ingrained within her since medical school.

She read, her head bowed over the table, so absorbed that she managed to ignore the ache that spread from the base of her skull down to her lower back as the hours passed.

()()()

At exactly four o'clock the next day her buzzer sounded. She tried not to jump, and took a deep breath as she let him in and unlocked her door. She was setting two mugs of honey-sweetened herbal tea on the table when he entered her apartment.

She shot him a relaxed smile. That was the order of the day: relaxation. She had decided that calmness—something she was positive his life lacked to a pathological degree—would be vital in their sessions. It would keep them both more at ease with one another, more honest, and, hopefully, the treatment would be more effective.

"Hi Jason. Have a seat." She turned to collect her notes before sitting, and when she eased down into her chair she found herself face to face with him as he peered almost comically into his steaming beverage. She sipped her own. "How are you feeling?"

He shrugged. "Okay." A pause. "Better than yesterday." It was low, almost monotone, and didn't give her much to work with.

She smiled faintly and picked up her pen, flipping open her notebook. He watched her movements, obviously recognizing business time when he saw it because he squared his shoulders and took a breath. "Now. I have two hypotheses based on what you told me two nights ago, which wasn't actually that much, despite what it felt like." The corner of his mouth lifted slightly, and her lungs felt light in her chest. "I know it seems like we've talked a lot already, but I still have a few questions for you. Um… when these amnesia attacks occur—"

"Attacks?" He looked startled.

"Believe it or not, that's the technical term. When they occur, actually during the attack, do you have trouble forming new memories, or is it just the old, long-term memories that are lost?"

"Just the long-term, I think. All of a sudden I just think about some memory and… realize I don't remember details about it."

She watched his forearms on the table as he speaks because it was a hell of a lot easier than watching his eyes, before she scolded herself for being a crappy doctor and met his gaze. "Hmm…" She chewed on the tip of her pen thoughtfully, a habit from school not yet lost. "And how long do the attacks last?"

"Not more than an hour. Probably from fifteen to sixty minutes."

She could tell it was not a topic he enjoyed talking about, could sense the uncomfortable desire to fidget he was repressing. "And do you notice any triggers? Exercise, sleep deprivation, hunger…"

"Maybe sleep deprivation, but not really. It's hard to tell…"

"Because you're sleep deprived and stressed all the time."

"Yeah…"

He was staring at his untouched tea. "And the memories that you lose… do they all have to do with a particular instance? A particular event in your life?"

He began to shake his head, but then paused. After a beat he said, "I think they all have to do with before… with before Treadstone. But I never really noticed before." He met her eyes. "Do you think that's significant?"

"It could be." Actually she was relatively sure what he had divulged was in fact very important, but kept her cards close in hand for the moment. "Do you feel very anxious when these attacks occur?"

"Wouldn't you?"

"On a scale from one to ten, ten being a full-on panic attack."

"Seven and a half."

She nodded, took another sip of her tea. His expression was stoic, but not without signs of concern—his brow slightly furrowed, the jaw tense—and Nicky thought yet again what a trial this whole ordeal must have been for him. She smiled again, kindly. "As I said, I have two ideas. The first is that you may be experiencing something called Transient Global Amnesia, or TGA. It's kind of a weird syndrome—not really treatable, and at the same time not generally indicative of some greater health problem or risk. However, the fact that you don't experience any short-term memory loss makes the likelihood of this being your problem very low. Patients almost always experience memory loss of both types: long-term _and _short-term." She could feel herself slipping into doctor-mode, and everything she was saying suddenly became very impersonal, clinical and easy. Not like this man had pushed her up against a wall two nights ago, not like she had cried in front of him.

"What you said about all of the memory loss relating to your life before Treadstone is very interesting, and points towards my second hypothesis." She could feel him studying her, perhaps perplexed by her excessively professional air. She heaved a sigh, conscious of what she was about to say, of what it implied. "I believe you are experiencing symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder."

"PTSD?" There was no hint of damaged pride in his voice or demeanor, no anger. She wasn't sure what she'd expected, but he just looked confused. "But I don't…" He trailed off, his eyes searching hers.

Looking at him became very difficult, and she dropped her gaze to stare at her hands, the fingers white and interlaced, the skin around her fingernails torn and rough from nerves. She ran her thumb over a particularly raw spot on her index finger. She spoke slowly, carefully. "Given what you told me about the nature of the attacks, I think what's happened is that something you experienced in your training is… disrupting your memory. It's not uncommon among people who've experienced psychological trauma… during war, for instance. It has to be the training, I think. I don't think now… what they ask you to do…" She choked on her words, with words she wasn't brave enough to say. _I don't think what you do touches you now._

She finally looked at him again. He was closed, his eyes shuttered, the military stone-face erected. He looked like when they first met, almost a year and a half ago, and she tried not to cringe. She was so uncomfortable that her honesty when she spoke disarmed them both. "I know what I'm implying about Treadstone… about you. I know it's unpleasant. But it's the only thing I can think of, and it's the only thing that makes sense. Jason…" He looked so far away that she almost reached out her hand—only a foot or so, a mere twelve inches between them—to close her bloodless fingers over his. But no.

She repeated his name, more emphatically with a gentle voice. She hated the way he was looking at her, like he didn't know anything about her. She rested her temple against the heel of her hand, taking some of the strain off her neck as she watched him. "What do you remember about your training?"

His lips went into a hard white line before he spoke. "They wouldn't let us sleep. I just remember being very tired… all the time. The details… the details are fuzzy." It was very quietly said—if she'd sighed she wouldn't have heard it. She tried not to let sympathy mar her expression.

She watched his hand reach for the mug before him as if he didn't know what to do with it, watched it tremble faintly against the handle. She wondered what he wasn't telling her. What he couldn't remember, or didn't want to. She watched his hard face and knew they weren't going to get any further. "Okay. I think that's enough for today. I know it's a lot to take in and that this is all very hard to accept. My only suggestion is that you try to relax… try not to worry about it. Stress is a trigger, I'm almost certain. Sleep. Read a book. If you need anything, don't hesitate to call. I want to know if you have another episode." She stood, grabbing her empty mug by the rim and reaching for his.

He stumbled a little upon rising from his chair, and she lunged towards him to catch his elbow, even though he didn't need it. She held on to him, concern wrinkling her forehead and nerves shortening her breath. The skin under her fingertips was feverish, and she felt the hairs on his arm rising. "Jason…" It was a sweet whisper from her lips. "Are you alright? Will you be okay?"

He looked down at her and she could sense him, hauntingly, like a ghost, drinking in strength from her face, but she could have imagined it. He gave her a curt nod and drew away from her suddenly. "Yeah. I just need to think… think a while, I guess," he replied, obviously disturbed to distraction by what she'd just told him.

She leaned against the table to relieve her unsteady legs. Her palm smarted where she had touched him. "That's fine. It's going to take a while to process. Try and think about it when you're relaxed. Try to remember if you can. If you can't, that's okay. Just take it slow. Um…" He was moving towards the door already, head down, gait purposeful like he was on an assignment. She frowned. "I'll call you in about a week to see how things are going?"

"Fine." She watched the tension string his shoulders tight like a shackle. With fingertips on the doorknob, he slowed, turned back towards her. Nikky's breath caught in her throat. He inhaled and hesitated, his eyes darting around the room, landing on everything but her.

"I don't… I don't understand what this means."

He sounded like a little boy, and her chest cracked in two. The muscles around her spine actually constricted in preparation to _go go go _to him, but she crossed her arms over her chest instead. "Me neither…" she almost whispered, shaking her head as their eyes locked together in something irrevocable. "Not yet."

She watched the blue of his eyes for several moments more before he turned, resigning the anxiety of his back to her once more, and went out the door.

Nicky let out a shaky exhalation. "Fuck," she said loudly to the empty room.

()()()

"This is Conklin."

"Mr. Conklin, this is Nicky Parsons."

"Yes?"

"I just have a few questions…"

"Well? All of the assets functioning to expectations?"

"Oh, yes. Nothing like that. It's just that an issue has risen in the past few months… things that the agents have said, and I find myself needing answers to some potentially sensitive questions."

"Nicky, you know that information above your clearance level is strictly off-limits— "

"Of course, sir. I would never presume…"

"Shoot, then, if you have to."

"I need to know about Treadstone's training methods."

"Well, shit, Nicky. What the hell do you want to know that for?"

"I believe it would help me improve the psychological treatment of the agents, sir. Knowing what they've been through is very important to my analysis of their mental health. I need to know if they are at risk for anxiety disorders, things like that."

"We already had a shrink go through the protocol when Agent One commenced training."

"Bourne, you mean?"

"He was cleared. Fully sound. The doc said training would cause no undue effects. Drop it, Nicky. It's not important."

"Of course, sir. I only thought it might help."

"It won't."

"Understood. Have a pleasant night, sir."

()()()

**A/N**: Hey guys. Sorry this chapter has been so long coming. Between work and school it's hard to find the time!

Please note I'm not a doctor (or even a psych major), so anything I say about psychology is purely derived from my own, inadequate research and probably filled with mistakes ;). This is just kind of my attempt to reason around Jason's condition. Hope you all enjoy it! Btw, next chapter should be a good one… I'm certainly looking forward to writing it! Hopefully I can get it done more promptly than I did this one…


	10. Realization

**Realization**

()()()

Nicky brushed her teeth with even, firm strokes—not circular, as all of her frustrated dentists had recommended, but harshly up and down. Often there were pink streaks of blood when she spit into the yellowing basin of her sink. She was examining the faintly receding line of her gums one night, several days after her conversation with Conklin, and reflecting that she aught to change her dental habits, when she heard movement downstairs.

Even though she had a fairly good idea of who it was—dread sank like a stone in her gut—she still grabbed the 9 millimeter sidearm she kept in the drawer by her bed with unpracticed fingers and carried it with her as she descended the stairs. Upon seeing Jason close the front door less than gently behind him, she sighed loudly both in order to voice her displeasure and alert him to her presence.

"Don't you ever knock?" she asked rather rudely, setting the gun down on a table.

"Not usually," he replied, and then added, as an afterthought: "Sorry."

"Ring the goddamn bell next time." Realizing her vitriol, she forced tranquility into her tone. "Ugh… sorry. I was about to go to bed. Um…. What's the matter?"

He had been circulating, like a caged cat, but halted at her question and looked at her. She shivered; she couldn't see his eyes in the shadows. "I can't remember things again."

All exhaustion fled from her body as a rush of adrenaline quickened her pulse. "What can't you remember? This is important, Jason."

"The address of my family's home back in the States… other little things that don't matter unless you suddenly forget them." His voice was low, apparently calm, and it was only because she had studied him so completely that she was able to discern the tightly-wound panic in his tone.

"Why don't you sit down… the most important thing is that you relax. Would you like some tea?" He didn't reply but she went to the kitchen anyway and filled her electric kettle with tap water. Upon returning she found him seated on the couch, head in hands, the familiar line of tension thrumming over his shoulders. A soothing hum leapt suddenly from her lips and the maternal nature of it surprised her. She sat down next to him. "When did it start?" It was a near whisper.

"About an hour ago, I guess. I was doing some recon on Gasteau but it blew my concentration."

"Understandable."

"Mostly I forget little things. It's worse when it's faces, the faces of people I've known."

"PTSD can have strange, unforeseen effects. Honestly? Every case is different, and I need to observe and study as much as I can before I come up with concrete treatment options."

She watched his lips press into a tight line and the chords in his neck thicken as he caught her eyes, his own desperately searching. "I hate this. How can we make it stop? It's unbearable."

She was flustered by such a direct question, by his sudden candor, and could not curb the answering honesty of her reply. "I'm not altogether sure. There are drugs, anti-anxiety and depression—"

"No more drugs."

The addition of the second word did not escape her study; ever since she'd known him he'd used nothing much more than ibuprofen. "I…I need to do some more research. This isn't my specialty…I'm not a trauma therapist…"

"Please."

He said it so simply, so earnestly, that she could not restrain herself from staring at him, from almost manically absorbing the stark honesty in his gaze, the deepening furrows between his brows, the way his lips formed the word.

_(It's not as if she hadn't seen this coming. It's not as if she hadn't anticipated - _desired _- for this to happen.)_

She felt rather than commanded her body to move, observed as if outside herself the way her shoulders closed in towards him. If surprise registered on his face it was only for a second before her lips positioned themselves mere centimeters from his own. She hovered there, her breath coming in shakes and tremors, both unaware and completely under the spell of her raging thoughts, like a malfunctioning machine, as they flashed through her mind. She felt his breath on her lips and then brought hers to his abruptly, hard and almost unpleasant but for the welcome blankness that washed over her. She could feel his teeth beneath the sheaths of their lips as she pressed into him. She heard a whimper that must have come from her rent the darkness of the flat, silent but for their breathing.

The machine caught itself, righted its gears, and she tore away from him, all but gasping. "O-oh, oh my god. I'm sorry—" She tried to say his name but it wouldn't come. "I don't know… oh Christ." Her voice sounded unbelievably foolish to her own ears. She couldn't look at him and rose quickly, bolting.

His hand caught her wrist.

She stared at it, the way his sure fingers, deft and strong, curled around her flesh, around bones that seemed bird-like in their delicacy. She stared at it because she could still not meet his eyes or stop her mouth from running away from her. "That was a mistake… I'm sorry… so unprofessional, I didn't… I shouldn't… We…"

He was exerting a faint, non-threatening pressure where their skin touched, and it burned her. His thumb pressed pleasantly into the papery skin on the underside of her wrist, and she felt her pulse pounding there. She finally shut up, deafened by the sound of that same pulse in her ears, and—_finally_—stared into his eyes. They were unreadable but for a darkening that could have been the shadows. He licked his lips and she felt her breath leave her with an audible sound.

His grip turned hard and he pulled her against his chest, his lips seeking hers as his free hand snaked under her hair to grasp the back of her neck, pressing her face closer to his. For a minute she sat, limp, her legs folded under her awkwardly from when she'd fallen against him, before her body lit up and she shifted, drawing herself closer to him and then over him, feeling his body between her knees and then her thighs like it was an opiate and she an addict. She felt the vibration of his throaty groan in her stomach as she dipped her tongue into his mouth and her hands traversed the broad width of his shoulders. She heard herself making little sounds, involuntary and somewhat embarrassing, but the nebulosity of her thoughts paid them no mind.

His hands, rougher than she had expected, rucked up her t-shirt and rested, possessive in a way that raised some discomfort in an increasingly fuzzy area of her mind, over her lower back, before winding their way around her waist. She felt the flex of his arms as he used that leverage to draw her sharply against him, and she let out a very un-ladylike _gnuh_ as her pubic bone collided with the firm plane of his lower belly and the long-unused region below came to rest over his erection. She tried a little movement, a rickety, unpracticed sway, and the friction _there _combined with the way his hands were creeping up the sides of her breasts and his thumbs smoothed over her nipples made it so that continued breathing became rather difficult and she broke away from his lips with a gasped exclamation. He seemed to enjoy the sequence of events as well so she did it again. And again.

Just as the way his mouth worked over her throat shot a direct frisson of energy from her neck down to a little coil of tremulous tension in her groin, a thought occurred to her: _we are going to have sex now. I am going to fuck Jason Bourne_. _I am going to come so hard I give myself a migraine. _And the foreignness and the absurdity of it made her giggle not without some hysteria. He seemed to read her thoughts and pushed some space between them to look at her, panting hard. She watched his tongue, resting against his front teeth, as he prepared to speak, and felt even the little hairs all over her body stand up in an effort to touch him. "Are you sure," he paused to take a breath, his voice husky in a way that seemed to curdle her insides, "you want to do this?"

Answering him seemed ridiculous, so she pressed her body against him in reply and curled her tongue past his lips with a languid stroke. His fingers gripped the dampening hairs at the base of her neck. She vaguely remembered that somewhere in her closet there was a dusty box of condoms, and she hoped that they weren't expired as she recognized that their need for them was fairly urgent.

_(Pressure pressure yes _yes_. His hands seemed everywhere, his breath was deliciously hot, strained and desperate, in her ear. She bore down against the heat, seeking, seeking, and drew from him an agonized moan. God… god… _Jason…_)_

Bracing herself against his shoulders, she sat back a little, sucking on air. She gulped, tried pathetically to speak, and could not. He was studying her with an inferno in his eyes and a jaw that was working in a way that made her stomach quiver all over again. She rose on legs that felt atrophied, welcoming the way his strong grip supported her at her waist as he silently followed her lead up the stairs. They were momentarily distracted as, midway up to her room, he wrapped his arms tightly around her belly and crushed her to him, his face pressed to the back of her neck and his chest molded around her shoulders, as if they were both unable to bear lost contact, as if physical connection kept them from falling.

_(Tighter, tighter. The heat of his mouth on her skin, the contours of her body fitted into his. Darkness shielding them.)_

She didn't really remember how their clothes ended up on the floor of her bedroom, nor how a condom got from her closet onto his cock, nor how they came to be lying on her bed, but she did certainly remember telling him (_pleading with him_), in a voice that seemed both far away and not her own, _now now Jason please._ She could not forget the sensation of tissues and muscles tight from disuse stretching, yielding, and the brief twinge—a momentary, fleeting discomfort—before the feeling of astonishing fullness. A wince or a furrowing of the brow must have shown on her face because he paused for an unbearable moment, poised on his elbows over her, and opened his mouth as if to speak. All thoughts of conversation apparently ceased when she wrapped her legs around his hips, tilted her pelvis upwards, releasing a halted _o-ohhh _as she took him in, and tightened a somewhat select set of muscles as if to draw him yet further inside her. He made a low sound, exhaled loudly through his nose, and began to move.

_(So she had not forgotten. So she had not yet resigned herself.)_

She kissed him—slowly, carefully—as her heartbeat quickened.

()()()

She was spared the headache, but experienced a peculiar numbness of the soles of her feet upon the event of her rather powerful orgasm. She pondered hazily over this new experience as he collapsed beside her, sweating profusely and smelling deliciously of sex and hard work. She glanced sideways at him, saw him panting, eyes closed, into her sheets, and let loose an involuntary giggle. She was relieved to see the corner of his mouth go crooked, if only for a second.

They lay in relatively comfortable silence for some time. He seemed to be dozing, which, she was surprised to find, did not bother her in the slightest, although it was a bit of a trick to maneuver herself under the duvet once her skin began to cool without disturbing him. Despite her languid, jelly-limbed exhaustion she lay awake, reflecting.

Sex had become a non-entity in her life over the past year and a half, but she had a rather destructive feeling that this notable taste of what was once a latent desire would definitively put an end to that. She didn't know whether she hoped or dreaded that this (coupling? fucking? fornicating?) would become a frequent occurrence. It certainly made her professional life more difficult; she was pretty sure she would be unceremoniously sacked were this to get out.

She found that her gaze had come to rest on Jason's face, and she could not resist placing her fingertips lightly in the masculine hollow of his cheek, feeling the same roughness under her skin that had left a not unpleasant chafe on her jawline. She drew her hand quickly away when she saw his eyelashes flutter open and hoped he hadn't noticed.

They watched one another for a moment, both of them unsure of what to say. "You thinking?" He finally asked, his voice a deep, satisfied rumble.

She nodded, strangely shy. He tapped her chin with his index finger—it was not a caress, nor even really very affectionate, more of a brief, grounding contact. "Don't think too much."

This made her smile. "I do that a lot."

"Me too." He paused, frowning slightly. She found his faint frown-lines very adorable. He took a breath before speaking again. "I remember. I remember again."

She stared at him, incredulous, before she burst out laughing. Its volume was startling in the stillness of the room. He smiled only in response to her outburst, his eyes confused. "I guess we found the cure, didn't we?" she joked, still fairly snorting with laughter.

He now grinned in earnest. "I guess so."

()()()

He was gone before she woke, but she hadn't expected to find him in the morning anyway.

()()()

**A/N**: Mmmmm that made me happy. Hope you all enjoyed reading it as much as I did writing it.


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